No Tech Skills, no PM Job?
Can you become a product manager without an engineering degree? Definitely! While mastering technical skills isn’t required, learning basic tech concepts will make a huge difference. Curious to learn why? Read on.
Can I become a product manager without development skills?
One of the more frequent questions is, if someone without an engineering background can become a product manager for a digital product. My honest answer: Yes! It’s not rocket science. If you are open to learn the relevant tech basics, you will get your shot. Honest curiosity trumps a gap in initial knowledge.
Of course, the more technical the product, the harder the learning journey will be. But for most user-facing products, it will work out. Your initial lack of knowledge might even become a benefit.
The majority of PM tasks does not require tech skills. Understanding your market, identifying customer pain points and steering the product journey from roadmap to launch and beyond – none of these tasks inherently require technical know-how.
Remember: You’re the one aligning efforts to find and bring a viable and valuable product to market. Or to money – whatever is preferred. The risk of feasibility mainly lies with your teams’ engineers.
And still: A solid understanding of how technology works – even at a high level – is a valuable asset for PMs in any field. I’d go so far and say such knowledge will make most PMs’ daily business an order of magnitude easier. Even if you are not creating the code and infrastructure for your product, it’s a major benefit to understand the challenges, ways of working and trade-offs engineers face on a day-to-day basis.
To name a few common examples how some basic understanding of tech elevates the collaboration:
Handling basic tech questions: Imagine your marketing team asks how long it would take to integrate a new feature. With a basic technological understanding, you could give them a ballpark figure without the need to consult with devs. The engineers can remain focused on the actual work of solving problems. (Just to be sure, if it’s not obvious: Don’t promise any kind of deliveries without checking back with the people who will implement it. Just don’t. Rough indication – cool. Promised delivery by Christmas Season – not so much.)
Giving tech debt paydown the proper priority: Let’s say the devs tell you that cleaning up some old code (tech debt) is crucial before adding any new features. If you know why and that messy code can slow everything down, you’ll have an easier time giving it the right priority. And such trade-offs are super common in daily business.
Helping customer support: If a customer – or even worse, a HiPPO – reports a bug and you know enough to run through some basic troubleshooting, you can handle the first steps. This reduces the load on your engineers since only the tricky problems get escalated. Again: Shields them from unnecessary disctractions.
Your team collaboration will be so much more fruitful. Promised.
And even if mastery of technologies is hard, getting the basics right is not. It’s comparable to learning a new language: To reach an advanced level will take years of theoretical and practical training. But to get enough knowledge for basic dialogues – that’s a matter of weeks or months.
The most important “skill” for that journey is an open mind and curiosity to learn new things. Team mates and your environment can be great teachers, if you don’t overuse their time. Don‘t be afraid to admit you do not (yet) know certain aspects of the field.
And there are plenty of materials available online for training on your own. I am a big fan of Havard’s CS 50; an introduction to Computer Sciences that is aimed at students without any prior IT knowledge. It’s available for free on Youtube or as a full course on EdX.
I have met great product managers who do not come from a computer sciences background. What sets them apart is their prior expertise and vast competence in other fields of work. They have broad business knowledge, know exceptionally well how to communicate to stakeholders and customers or are brilliant in applying scientific ways of working to guiding a product.
So, if you are willing to put in the extra effort, you will be set for a great career. Good luck for your journey!
