How To Be An Eligible Product Manager?

Q: Do you need to know how to code & have a tech background to be a Product Manager?

Alright, let's break down the coding part first.

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There are 3 groups of jobs in this regard:

1. Coding at the job

There are some PM positions where you will be expected to read and push code as part of the job. For example, PMs for API-centric applications like Twilio.

2. Coding in the interview

In some cases, although there isn't much coding during the job, the company does evaluate those skills during hiring. For example, the Microsoft Program Manager internship assessment used to have a coding interview back in the day, but all PMs didn't code during their time.

3. No coding

There is no coding knowledge needed at the interview or during the job.

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Thus, if you are applying to jobs in the first 2 categories, you need coding experience, otherwise it's not a pre-requisite. Luckily, I've found that majority of PM jobs fall in the third category.

But a better question to ask is "SHOULD I learn to code as a PM?"

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In my career, I haven't pushed code to production much but have found it to be useful in certain cases:

• I used to bypass developers and execute SQL queries on the DB myself to extract data I needed
• I wrote Ruby scripts to automate a few things for myself e.g. renaming thousands of files in a folder to a certain standard.

But a technical background & exposure to coding really comes in handy when you're sizing up a user story.

As you might know, every PM tries to balance 4 risks when they're building a product namely business viability, usability (will the user be able to use it), value (does the user need it?) and feasibility (can we build it?).

So, a technical background helps in having some sense on the 4th risk of feasibility. It also allows you to challenge a developer who is trying to make the feature sound more complex than it really is.

My stance, thus, is that although you may not need a tech background to GET the job, it is your responsibility to learn some basics after.

I'm listing some skills PMs should invest in (plenty of 101 course on these topics on Udemy):

1. Pseudo-code

Helps in flowcharting & explaining business logic in specs.

2. Databases basics

Know how data is stored & processed.

3. HTML/JS/CSS

Know what goes into developing a UI & how CSS impacts it.

4. Data Structures

Hashmaps, arrays & graphs help open possibilities.

5. Web architecture

Client-server models, APIs, webhooks

Additionally, learn domain-specific fundamentals too. If you're working on a mobile app, then learn a bit about the framework. Or if your USP is based on AI, then learn about ML models.

Moreover, a course on statistics + Excel can help you navigate/analyze data better & even aid in interpreting A/B tests.

Finally, it's not hard.

Regardless of what background you come from, you can pick these basics easily. In fact, you might even enjoy them.