cuHow to Transition from Engineer to Product Manager in Seven Steps
So you’re looking to switch up your career path from engineer to product manager? This can be a difficult transition for some people but others may already have some core concepts down.
The work you put into your career as an engineer can easily be translated to some of the work you may do as a product manager. There is plenty of overlap in skills between the two professions. As an engineer, you likely have strong technical and customer service skills. Those two skills are great to segue into key skills of product managers such as discovering the right direction for a product and creating a shared understanding of that direction across your company.
There are plenty of aspects that contribute to good product management. When it comes to transitioning to a product manager role, we have seven easy steps for making your transition from engineer to product manager:
- Establish your technical skills
Any engineer and well rested supervisor is likely to have strong technical skills. Even when products aren’t technical, the ability to “speak developer” can be a huge asset as a product manager. This allows for clarity and easier communication that assists you to speak how your audience can understand. Even if you are a product manager without a technical background, making the effort to understand technical concepts surrounding products will make a big difference.
By understanding code or understanding the people who write code for your company and learning what challenges they face, you as the product manager will have an easier time translating what needs to be accomplished to other areas. An interest in what they are doing and the want to learn more is a great indication that this is the right job for you.
2. Give supportive customer service
As a product manager, it is crucial to understand customer service and the behaviors and needs of your customer base. You should be knowledgeable of issues that customers are likely to have and be able to share that among different teams throughout the company. From there, it is your responsibility to determine solutions that are both effective, financially sound and that clearly understand your customers problems.
You should also be able to actually hold conversations and hear out your customers. Be patient and a good listener, even when they may be giving constructive criticism. Your customer is the one using your product and because of that, they may have some insightful wisdom for ways to improve it. Don’t be defensive or dismissive but rather kindly engage and thank them for their time and constructive feedback.
3. Know when to let your engineers take the lead
Though step 1 is a great segue into knowledge as a product manager, this can also come back to bite you as a weakness. Specifically telling the engineers what and how to build is definitely going to be stepping on some toes and taking the power away from their own roles. If you are a product manager now, it is no longer your place to engineer the product. You will not be focused on the technical aspects anymore like you were when you were an engineer, so leave the professionals to do their job how they choose.
If you are constantly overstepping the boundaries of your job, your engineer team will feel micromanaged. Simply, you no longer have a say in how they are doing their job. If you are moving roles within the same company and working with engineers you used to engineer with, there will eventually come a time when engineers that only know you as a product manager come into play. You do not want to get into the habit of playing both roles. Have empathy for your team and treat them how you would want to be treated, but still focus on the needs of your customers. This help maintain a strong and encouraging team culture so everyone is able to do their best work.
4. Properly manage time and information
As product manager, you are interacting with a variety of people across different departments. This is going to mean a lot of your time will be spent in meetings and you will be passing information across different departments. This is where some project management applications would be very helpful for keeping track and sharing information. Use an application like Nifty to track tasks, communicate with teams, and even track time spent on projects. If you are looking for a note taking based application, Evernote is a solid cloud based note book application that will allow you to easily share information.
5. Get an MBA
Though this is not necessary to transition into the role of product manager, it has a lot of benefits. Through the degree you can get exposure to other career options, network growth and friendships. It’s likely that actually being a product manager will teach you more effectively than a class, but this is a surefire way to get your skills on paper. Through your classes you would be able to gain deeper knowledge into the realm of product strategy. If you can afford this option, want to further your education and want to better understand your role as a product manager, this is a great path to choose.
6. Overcome imposter syndrome
With any new role, you are going to be questioning whether this is right for you or the right decision. This is normal and something many of us will experience throughout our lives. You shouldn’t focus on your abilities or where you started, but instead focus on what is to be improved and why solutions work a certain way for your product. You don’t know the answer to everything, but you will have a better understanding of it all over time. Rome wasn’t built in a day and you don’t have to be the perfect product manager your first week either. It is all about trial and error and learning what works best for you and your team.
7. Optimize end-user experience
As an engineer you were likely always working to optimize your developer’s productivity. This is different now as product manager as your focus shifted tp optimizing the end-user experience. Before you were determining the fastest way to build something, but that isn’t what matters anymore. You want your product to actually be of value and easy for users to understand how to use. You are going to be very used to making decisions based on time, so it’s important that you fight this tendency as a product manager and being accustomed to using the best software to bring your team together quickly.
Conclusion
Companies may be surprised at the outstanding ability of product managers that began as engineers. The transition between the two professions, either way, provides valuable skills to both sides and will allow for new insights to improve the developer or the customer experience. If you are hoping to make the switch within your company, consider some of the steps listed above and how you already present some of these characteristics. It may be an easier transition for you than you realize and you might be the perfect fit for your company.
