To Land a Job in Product, First Land a Job in Tech
As someone with no tech experience, I understand what the first step I must take to land a job in product, so that I can better my future with wealth and success
Technical Product Management is inherently an intermediate role.
To operate successfully as a Product Manager, you must grasp how enterprise software development functions, and what users expect out of technology. These are concepts one does not learn in school. No matter how built up and robust a product boot camp may be, the most important dynamic is the one they lack - money. Product Management exists to oversee paying people to build software that others will pay to use. If there is no capital risk/reward involved, you are not a real product manager.
Capitalism is at the heart of the role. PMs exist to facilitate the building of expensive, profitable software. Wherever there’s big money, there’s an opportunity for someone smart to make money as an overseer of the process.
In technology, that role is product management.
It’s with this backdrop one starts to understand the lack of entry-level product roles. Executives hire PMs to oversee their most expensive resources (developers) to deliver what generates outsized revenue returns(Software products). Why would anyone entrust the inexperienced with such a responsibility?
Therein lies the bind of breaking into Product. You need experience to land a role, but there isn’t a clear path to getting that experience without having previously held the role.
To overcome this impenetrable barrier, you must be a chess player. Plan move by move, slowly maneuvering the pieces on the board until you're in position to land the product role - checkmate.
Step one is to land a job in tech. Any job
Next, you must learn a subset of the skills for product management. You may need to transfer to a role one step removed from the product.
Then, when the opportunity is ripe, you transition into a product role.
What are Entry Level Technology Roles?
An entry-level tech role is any position that one can be hired to that does not require previous direct experience.
They are often given to fresh college graduates, hungry to prove themselves in this wild world.
Alternatively, motivated workers with non-tech experience utilize these roles to break into tech.
Imagine you are a discouraged employee in their late 20s. You’ve been burned by lies and bosses who consider being cheap a virtue. In response to the BS, you go searching for where the money is.
This will bring you to the hottest large-growth tech company that can’t hire fast enough.
During the lifecycle of every successful tech company, periods of explosive growth occur. This could be due to a company timing a new market perfectly. Or it is when a company raises $100 mm of VC funding to inject steroids into company growth.
In such periods, these companies cannot hire fast enough. In the name of getting the headcount, they’ll inherently lower their standard of hire, and take more risks on candidates.
In their eyes, in hiring 3 nontraditional background candidates, if one turns out to be a stud - it’s a win! They get a star employee on a cheap contract and can fire the duds in the next round of layoffs.
These types of roles are few and far between for product management. Entry-level roles are small in scope and lack the gravitas of responsibility. They are meant to spell relief to the higher-levered contributors to the business. They’re intended to unload the grunt work to someone cheaper.
Product Management is innately an intermediate role. Hell, it’s the the name - management. There’s a reason Product Associate has not been popularized in the tech space. To be a product manager requires a healthy amount of business savvy and critical decision-making. By design, it’s meant to be above the grunt work.
There do exist Associate Product Manager roles. They are not intended for outsiders with no experience looking for a break. They function as apprenticeships and are very discriminate on who is allowed in. There are 3 groups of people hired into Associate PM roles.
Programming Break:
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