As a non-technical product manager venturing into the world of software engineering to become technical, what angle do I go—cloud engineering, Frontend or Backend?
In this article, I will walk you through my thought process on how I choose a path to becoming a technical product manager.
Why become a Technical Product Manager?
I started my 'product manager' (PM) journey in the upstream function of product management, and managed products from idea to launch. But being a first time PM at a startup, it is customary that I would also be involved in activities related to product marketing.
On a light note, you can call me a 'Full Stack PM'. Although, I am currently a Generalist PM.
A cloud-based payroll solution is one of the products I manage. And in my collaboration with the devs on my team, I've repeatedly heard certain terminologies used so much that I understand the role they play in the development of the product, mostly backend-related. This has inspired my wanting to know beyond the 'Why' of a product to understanding the 'How'.
How to become a Technical Product Manager
First of all, what does a Technical Product Manager do differently from a Non-Technical Product Manager?
A technical product manager (PM) is a product manager with a strong technical background that is typically focused on the more technical aspects of the product. A technical PM works more closely with the engineering team than the business, sales, and marketing teams of the organization.
— Product Plan.
Technically, what I need to become a technical product manager is a deeper understanding of technology enough to empower me to translate business value into technical requirements, and effectively collaborate with technical stakeholders.
In Conclusion,
Since I already love the sound of conversations around concepts like microservices, database management and scalability etc, I might as well just kick off with Backend Engineering.
Also, at some point in my backend engineering journey, I'm aware that I will interact with some bit of cloud and frontend, and I think that suffices for me, for now. My next contemplation would be Nodejs or Python—Which should I go for?
Thank you for reading this far. This is my first article on Dev.to, and it means a lot to me that you are here. Feel free to connect with me on Linkedln, and expect to read my next article pretty soon.
Photo Credit: Simplilearn and Skiplevel
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