5/30: Technical Skills for Product Managers
We often talk about how, alongside a certain skillset, product managers need "product sense" and "product thinking" to excel at their roles. But what about technical skills? What technical skills do you need to be a product manager?
This may come as a surprise to some, and a point of disagreement for others, but the honest answer is — none.
Whatever the wisdom of earlier days may have been, product managers today do not need to be former software engineers.
You don't need to know how to code.
But!
Just like we need product sense and product thinking, to succeed as a PM you need technical sense and technical thinking.
Now what does that even mean?
To my mind, product managers are system designers (or perhaps system integrators). We largely work on the level of concepts — whether they're business ideas and models, design prototypes, or technical POCs, architecture overhauls, or API connectivity.
So while you don't need to learn how to code, you should get comfortable with certain technical concepts.
But that technical sense and thinking is a muscle you can develop on the job, and with just a little of bit of effort here and there!