Product Manager Job Description

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Salary, Skills, Certifications, Duties and more..

How does owning every aspect of a product that is used by millions across the globe sound to you? Motivating? Product Management just might be the role for you.

There is a reason why product management is one of the highly sought-after jobs in any company and why millions of candidates apply for product management roles each year. Think about some of the products that you might be using almost every day: Gmail, Twitter, NotePad or even Adobe Photoshop, and imagine being the decision-maker on almost every aspect of the application. You’re making an impact on millions of lives every day and that is why product management is both an alluring job and a difficult one.

Let’s dive in to see the benefits and pitfalls of this popular role and shed some light into the skills required, the average salary of a PM and other relevant information.

Product Managers often create flowcharts to decide on the features of a product.

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So What is Product Management?

In the basic sense, a Product Manager (or Product Owner, Product Design Manager) is the person responsible for overseeing all the aspects of a product from ideation to product launch, from marketing and post-launch product improvement.

When you think of a PM, think of these daily tasks as a part of the job in any company:

Work with the design teams (for physical products) or UX/UI teams (for digital products) to create a great user experience for your customers.
Analyze feedback from customers to improve various aspects of the product.
Create reports and analysis docs for stakeholders.
Work with the marketing teams to increase adoption of the product.
Work with the PR teams to plan the communication schedule.
Work with engineering teams to release bug fixes or new features of the product.
Arrange meetings with all the stakeholders of the product in the company, acting as the leader of the project/product.

What are the Types of PM Jobs?

Due to their broad responsibilities, larger companies tend to categorize product managers into various specialized roles:

General Product Managers
Technical PMs
Hardware PMs
Software PMs
UX / Design PMs
Marketing PMs
Analytics PMs

Although the duties of the PMs will change greatly depending on which roles they take from the above list, a number of things will be common:

Team / Project / People Management
Feedback management for product improvements
Stakeholder management

Product Manager Duties and Responsibilities

Although a product manager’s duty may differ depending on the specific PM role they’re in, basically a PM will be held accountable for making sure that their product is successful, however, the term “success” is defined by the stakeholders for that specific product.

Previously we mentioned that there are many types of Product Managers, but they have a lot of duties in common between them:

Understanding the needs of the user (users can be internal or external stakeholders and users of the product).
Define the vision of the product after monitoring the market and user behaviors.
Get stakeholders on board with the product vision.
Panning, prioritizing and executing product features.

Necessary Skills for a Product Manager

Product Managers come from a wide variety of backgrounds, but the skillset necessary to become a successful PM is shared across these PMs:

An eye for “what customer wants”
Strong data analysis skills
Organization & team Management skills
Good communication skills
Stakeholder management skills
Multi-tasking skills
Adaptability to strict deadlines
Prioritization
Spreadsheet proficiency
Good knowledge of regulations and taxation around the service/product

Certification and/or Training for Product Managers

For Product Managers, it is hard to name a specific Bachelor’s Degree due to the variety of backgrounds they come from – and that is good news! If you are an engineer or studied business in college, you’ll find a PM role that suits your skills and capabilities. It is also important to note that nearly half of the product managers in US have a Master’s or Doctorate degrees.

If you want to get a certification showing your product management skills, we recommend you to check out the following programs:

Google Product Management: Professional Certificate by Coursera

Stanford University Executive Education Courses

Certified Product Manager Program by AIPMM (The Association of International Product Marketing and Management)

Software Product Management Specialization Certificate by Coursera

Cornell Product Management Certificate Program

Product Manager Salary

The average salary of a PM will depend on the business sector, experience and education level (degrees you have) of the PM.

Many outlets report different average salaries for Product Managers, but the median PM salary according to top research-based institutions is 80K USD. Here is a breakdown of average salaries based on various factors (base compensation, 2022):

Entry level PM Salary: 60K – 80K USD
Experienced PM Salary: 80K – 120K
Experienced PMs with Master’s Doctorate degrees: 150K – 200K USD
Chief Product Officer Salary: 150K – 600K USD

Tips and Tricks for Your Product Manager Interview

For a successful interview, first of all, examine the product manager job description given in the accountant job post in detail, as requirements for various types of product managers will differ a lot. Is this a software or hardware, or service-related PM role? Will you be managing a team or is this an individual contributor role? Try to read between the lines of the job post to use that to your advantage.

Before your interview comes up, make sure that you do your due diligence about the company and the team you’ll be working for. That way you can tailor your answers/examples to be more suited and relevant to the role you’re interviewing for.

During your interviews, underline your strengths in the skills and qualifications that you think will be relevant for this specific PM role. As a rule of thumb, we always encourage candidates to prepare one example where they can talk about a mistake they made and what they have learned from them. Self-assessment skills are important from a recruiter’s point of view!

If we wrap up, you can find the definitions and guidelines (skills, requirements, education, training and certification etc.) for a Product Manager above. We hope it helps to give you an overview and shows which path suits you more!