Product Management

Product Managers (PM) sit between the business and technology sides of the company. Their manage products (or product features) throughout the lifecycle: they help to find which products should be made, help to make sure those products are made, and then report back on how customers are responding to the products.

In the initial “Discovery” phase of the product life cycle, the PM is focused on speaking with customers and analyzing data to try and understand and define the problem and how their product could potentially solve it.

The next step is to turn the data collected in the discovery phase into a roadmap that can be used to plan how the product will be developed.

With the roadmap in place, the PM can focus on execution, working with the engineering and design teams to build the product, and then with the marketing team to launch the product to customers.

Once the product is in the hands of real customers, the PM will be running tests performing analysis to measure its success and find any potential bugs or problems.

An early stage startup will generally focus the full resources of the company towards one product. As companies grow in size they may bring in additional product managers to help bring new products to market, or turn upcoming features into their own “products”, allowing for easier management of increasingly complex processes.

We can look to Instagram for an example of this: when they started they were a relatively simple photo sharing app, but over time they have added additional “products” (or features) like the ability to upload video to the feed or post time-limited “stories”, and these products are managed by product managers within the growing Instragam team.

PMs have been called the “CEOs of the Product” but this isn’t really accurate, as they generally need to rely on using influence more than direct authority. And while they are product “managers”, many PMs will not have direct reports, but instead work alongside members of teams like engineering, design and marketing as needed.

The priorities for a Product Manager can change based on the stage of the company.

For early stage startups the goal is generally to try and get the product to Product/Market fit as quickly as possible, and along with their normal work a PM may be expected to help in areas like marketing, pricing and support.

In more mature, established companies a PM will likely have a more narrow focus and could be working as part of a larger team of product managers, each overseeing a particular product or feature and relying on the various teams within the company (like marketing or support) to perform their specific roles.

Product Management Salaries

Product Management roles generally pay well, with salaries in the USA at around $100k per year or more.

Becoming a Product Manager

Product Managers spend their days working with engineers, designers, marketers, analysts and more, so the roles tend to require a broad range of knowledge rather than very specific knowledge in any one area.

Product Managers usually have college or university degrees, although not necessarily from a PM-specific field. PMs come from a relatively diverse set of backgrounds, and many companies are open to hiring junior-level PMs with little or no previous tech experience.

To be a successful PM you’ll need to be a strategic thinker. Speaking on behalf of the customer requires a lot of speaking with the customer, so the role also requires great communication skills. You’ll also need to be strong at managing relationships as a huge part of the job is based around influencing groups within the company to work together effectively.

The amount of technical skills required is usually based on the type of products being developed. As an example, a Product Manager working at a company with products that help engineers to monitor production applications would likely need to be more technically proficient than a PM working at a consumer-focused social media startup.