Part 1: How to Hack your Way to your first Product Job
As a non-technical tech employee, how can I develop skills needed to land my first Product Management role?
Epic: Breaking into Product
This is Part I of II. Part II will be a deep dive into specific projects I took, both on the clock and off, to get the skills needed to break into product.
Forever a paradox of product - to land a product management role, you must first have “Product Managed”.
It’s a full on Catch-22
How do you get your first product job, if product experience is required?
Let’s level-set1.
There are a number of direct feeders today to break into Product Management. We’ll start with the easiest and work our way towards the most difficult.
Routes to break into Product
Get a Computer Science degree from a Top Undergrad University, and land an APM role targeted toward new grads: Straight into Product! Big tech loves to do this, as they can get some that look good on paper, at a cheap price point compared to people already in the workforce. From a company perspective, the hope here is that due to them being so young, they won’t know any better and wont bolt to a better paying product job the second they can.
Get an MBA, with a focus on product management: You’ll do a product management internship as part of this route, where you actually do real product work. Essentially, you are paying $200K to break in.
I’m not a fan, as I like my PMs to be more crafty than following such a prescribed and proven route. Maybe that’s a personal bias (And I’m sure there are some benefits that make you better at product) but I’m DEFINATELY not about spending money when you should be making it.
Alas, it is viableTransition internally at the company you are at into a product role as either a Business Expert(Think Customer Success) or technology expert (Developer or QA): Companies love the idea of this, as they can then claim you can “Build a career here and transition into new roles!” In reality, this again enables a year or so of cost control for a first-time PM who you don’t have to train from scratch on either your business or tech operations. I highlight recommend this route to readers of this blog, as they then can skip town to a proper paying product job as early as 6 months in.
Informally build product skills, then iterate how you present yourself until someone hires you: The most creative route! I did I hybrid of this and path 3, where I first transitioned as the company would let me to product management, opening the door for me to land a role in it elsewhere.
That company was to let me fully transition to product as I was “Critical” to other business operations. It took longer than I would of liked, but then 3X my base of that role within 3 years of leaving it
How to informally develop Product Skills
With the routes established, let's discuss how you execute on routes 3 or 4, by building product skills without formally working on the product. This will help two-fold by giving you a taste of the job and providing content to pad the resume so recruiters will take you seriously.
If you read my article on How to Reverse Engineer the Perfect Product Resume, you should now be able to identify JDs2 of potential target companies for you to apply. From those job requirement bullet points, we’ll want to birth new projects, either in your current company or outside of it, that can become:
A bullet point on your resume that’s relevant enough to a product that a recruiter or hiring manager would ask you about it
Something specific you can speak to knowledgeable on a phone interview that demonstrates some level of competency around a product management process.
You can really do this either on the clock in the context of your day-to-day role at a company, or off the clock with personal projects, online resources, or hacks.
On the clock development of Product Skills
Good news! Most companies are stingy with hiring the right amount of staff to complete the work they actually need finished. This means there will always be opportunities to fill in gaps.
When in a non-product role, this is an opportunity for you step in for needed “Product” work to get some reps under your (white)belt. In a good company, they would see your initiative as a reason to move you into the product org. At most companies, you’re building a resume for the next job
Let’s break down possible routes by common non-product roles at technology companies.
Marketing: Usually, the marketing team is who owns the presentation of information on the company website, as the design of said website is an essential asset to positioning3 in the marketplace.
What do I need to redesign a website? A web developer! You could be the individual that liaises with the web developer for updates to your website UI. Do this once, and you’ve “Defined the scope of work, wrote specs, and collaborated with a dev team to execute front end web development” - BAM - you’re a PM!Conversely, there’s a pretty clear path from Marketing -> Product Marketing -> Product
CX4- Support Line: When your the person who fields the support calls for a product, you’re on the front lines of everything that sucks about said product. Undoubtedly you’ve had an unruly user rant about how garbage your software is at some point. Here you need to take those complaints, and start to craft it into a User Story for a feature enhancement that could be adopted5.
This will require some political nuance, as an insecure shitty PM will feel like this is“Steppin on their turf”. You’ll want a talented PM (May have to go up a leve6l) as they’ll be receptive to you writing a story as you’re literally saving them work to do. Done right, this PM may even aid in an internal transitioning to the product org! Dirty secret - the feature doesn’t even have to ever be adopted. Wire the specs once and you can act in interviews as if it actually did get coded.CX: Account Manager Here, you are the point person to make sure your assigned clients are happy. Simple task - actually talk to your clients about either what they don’t like, or wish you had in your products. Do this once, and you’ve participated in “Client Discovery7”.
SDR8: As the person setting up demos for prospects, you should be paying attention as your AE delivers said demo. Listen attentively for where they ask for functionality that you’re current product does not offer. Once you identified the gap that exists, use that gap to write a user story for a potential new feature. After that, take the same steps as CX: Support Line and you’re good to go.
QA9 Tester: As you test new features, almost guarantee there are use cases that we’re ignored in the first pass of the feature. Identify those edge cases/gaps not addressed, and be the force to address them. You can then present the extension of a feature to address the gaps as a new feature you owned as a “De Facto” PM
Software Development: The easiest transition - as my favorite PMs are typically ex-developers as they are laser-focused on shipping code.
Pretty simple here, write the user story for a feature that you know is needed that your PMs are not getting around, get your dev lead & PM to agree, then code it! You’re PMs should be trying to keep you happy, and you're ideally saving them work, so there should be pretty receptive here.
The playbook is to find anything within the context of your current company and role than can be a proxy for what a product manager would do. It’s the nature of tech to have more work needing to be done than can actually get done. Use that fact to your advantage
To actually succeed in product, you have to be proactive. PMs are meant to be a driving force of change, meaning initiative is essential for the role. For that reason, breaking into Product requires will-power and focus. It’s a write of passage to overcome corporate friction that wants to keep you in lesser paying roles. I love a candidate who goes out of their way to create the opportunity for themselves. PMs are meant to be scrappy. Hiring managers want someone who can bully their way through that door.
Ain’t no sheep in my product org.
That product role is closer than you think.
In Part II - for my paid subscribers only - I’ll walk through the specific projects I created in my own career to officially pivot to product. Behind the pay wall is here all my most actionable content will always live.
An example of a product role you could have!
Survey Monkey - Product Manager, Growth - Fully Remote: Up to $156K salary
Got a product resume you need to up-level? I’ll review your resume, then talk tactics on a call.
Are you struggling with a product problem today? I’ll hop on a call and help you put forth the game plan to solve your issues.
Level Set: Setting a baseline understanding for everyone discussing a topic so as to be productive
JD: Job Description - jargon term for a job listing
Positioning: Where specifically your company in to the full landscape of your industry. Sometimes its more marketing than reality.
CX: Customer Experience - anything cutsomer support related. This name for customer service gets changed in tech every 5-10 years or so
Adopted: A feature/bug that actually makes it into a development sprint to be coded
Up a Level: Going to a higher level of coprorate governor strucutre. (Manager → Direct → VP → C-Suite)
Discovery: Talking to stakeholders to understand what the hell is actually happening in the context of a project you are working on
SDR: Sales Development Rep: Someone who is trying to find prospects to potentially sell to. This is an entry level sales role that feeds into the money maker role of Account Executive (Salesperson)
QA: Quality Assuance - making sure things are actually working in your software - a perpetual upwind battle.