5 skills that will get you hired as a TPM

Wondering what it takes to be a Technical Product Manager?

Already a TPM, but checking to see if you have these skills?

Read on.

Whether you want to be a TPM or are already a Technical Product Management professional, these 5 things will make you stand out.

At Wahl+Case we have helped hundreds of candidates land jobs in Product Management with companies like DoorDash, Line, and many more.

Here are the top 5 skills that get people hired as Technical Product Managers, as well as strategies for building these skills that you can try today.

*Disclaimer: This is not an intro to what a TPM does.

These are specific strategies to get you a Technical Product Management job. If you are not familiar with the Technical Product Management position, please start with our Technical Product Manager role overview.

Alright, let’s get started.

1- Effective Communication

This is a crucial skill for all Product Managers, technical or otherwise.

You need to develop the ability to communicate effectively with your team of engineers, the Product Manager or Product Owner, other dev teams, the business teams, and the C-suite.

Effective communication goes beyond having conversations, it means translating technical requirements into business results and translating business requests into technical specs.

You need to know the language that will trigger the change and motivate people to get things done on both the technical and business sides.

This comes from having an in-depth understanding of what is important to each stakeholder you are interfacing with.

Skill Building Strategies

So how do you get experience in communication? Talk to people!

Here are a few places you can start:

Talk to your team. You know them, you love them, but do you understand them? If you are an engineer, these are the people you should start with. Get to know how the rest of your team works, their pain points, and how they communicate with the TPM.
Ask your CEO out to lunch. If you are friends that should be easy, if you have never spoken, it may feel a bit awkward, but get to know the leadership's way of thinking. What is important to them? What do they hope to achieve? What drives them to make changes in the product?
Talk to your customers or clients. This will come into play later, but you should always strive to understand what your customers want from your product. Even if it is outside of your normal duties, reach out to clients to discuss the problems they are having and how they are actually using your solution. Pay attention to how they talk about it and what really matters to them.
Message ex-colleagues, new friends, or friends of friends. Linkedin is quickly becoming the top social network for a reason. That reason is the network-building capabilities. Reach out to anyone who is already working as a TPM and get a sense of how they look at communication with each team they interface with.

Technical professional working on a computer

2- Technical Expertise

This one may seem obvious due to the name, but it is not always a requirement.

It is one of the things our client's highlight when they are trying to find the right person for the job.

However, the meaning of a “Technical background” can vary a lot from company to company, and can also be seen as a stand in for “Industry Knowledge”

For example, if you are working in a FinTech company, this could mean an understanding of financial modeling, statistics, and economics.

Whereas a company like Line, “technical” is more focused on engineering skills or coding experience.

Skill Building Strategies

Ideally, you would be working in a technical role to get experience, but if not, here are some places to build a coding skillset.

Code Chrysalis - We may be biased, because we have worked with Code Chrysalis in the past, but we have helped their graduates get the types of positions you are looking for! Give them a shot if you are looking to get more technical in your work.
Swithups Best Coding Bootcamps of 2021 - The top three coding bootcamps as rated by Switchup. What is Switchup you ask? “Since 2014, SwitchUp has been a trusted source for helping people identify their ideal bootcamps”
Youtube - Ok, you probably could have guessed this one. There are dozens of free coding courses on youtube, here is a playlist of great beginner coding courses to get you started.

person demonstrating Prioritization of tasks

3- Prioritization

To get hired as a TPM, you need to be able to effectively build the roadmap to launch and beyond, this means your prioritization will need to be top notch.

You need to understand what is important, what is urgent, and what is realistic, then effectively communicate (hey, that was the first skill!) the priority to all stakeholders and team members.

The ability to see optimize the development process will make you stand out from the other people applying for a TPM role, but how do you build these skills?

Skill Building Strategies

This may seem hard if you are not already in a role with management responsibilities, but there are opportunities if you get creative.

Here are a few ideas to help you get into the right mindset:

Take over a piece of the project. Talk with your Dev manager and PM and let them know that you want to move toward Technical Product Management and try to own a piece of the product.

Offload work from your TPM. Talk with your Product Manager or Technical Product Manager to get a sense of where they could use some help and offer to take some of the overflow off of their plate. This will give you a taste of what a TPM does on a day to day basis and can serve as a great baseline.

Internal management courses and programs. These will be programs offered by your company that can show you the basics of how to communicate and motivate teams. These programs may not be directly relevant to Technical Product Management, but they will give you a good foundation and show your company the direction you want to move.
Get familiar with the tools. Project Management tools such as Asana, Monday.com, or Jira are tools that are used by professionals in the industry, so having a familiarity with these is a great starting point. Generally, these skills are transferable from software to software, so being an expert would be even better.

4- Data-Driven Logical Thinking

If you are able to think logically using data to show that your ideas are actually solving problems for customers and reducing technical debt or overall cost, you will stand out among TPM applicants.

You must be constantly validating( and invalidating) your ideas using the tools at your disposal.

These tools will be slightly different depending on the type of service or product you are working on; be it B2B or B2C.

Skill Building Strategies

To build this skill you are going to need to leverage your current companies assets:

B2B: Talk to clients. You need to talk with your clients to get a sense of how they are really using the product and what is valuable to them. Write down everything! This will give user stories based on actual use cases, that you can use to validate any idea you bring to your team.

B2C: Look at the user data. If you are working with a B2C product, look over the user data to see if there are pain points or unused features, then try to come up with solutions or replacements using the data to show why these would be good to implement.
Data Basics: Python, SQL, R. Basic database queries will be necessary in many TPM roles, so it is important to be familiar with these languages. Here are a few courses to get you started: Coursera (SQL), Datacamp (R), Learnpython.org (Python)

5- Understanding the User

This skill is last on the list for a reason. Although it is a critical skill for almost all PMs, as a Technical Product Manager, your responsibilities lie more in translating the user needs into technical requirements that your dev teams will then build.

Having said that, a mark of a truly great Technical Product Manager is the ability to put together technical user stories and use them to prioritize the things that are going to have the biggest impact on the end user’s experience.

At the core, you are still building products for users to use, and that means that understanding the user is still vital.

Skill Building Strategies

Although this may seem a bit more abstract, it is important to keep in mind that you can get better at understanding your customers even if you are not directly interfacing with them.

Here are some ways you can work on becoming more customer-centric:

Practice empathy. Put yourself in the shoes of your direct customers, what problem is your product really solving for them? How can you solve even more problems or where are their bottlenecks affecting their experience?
Now, work on solving those issues within the scope of your own work. If you are not sure where to start, ask more questions!
The extra mile. If you are already in a customer-facing role, think about how you can go above and beyond for your customers, providing them with the best experience that will make them want to share their story with their community and come back for more.
Internal customer service. What if you are not building products for customers? I recommend treating whoever you are working with as your customers. Try to get a sense of the places that you can help the most and do what you can to create solutions that solve the issues your colleagues are having.
Create guides or videos that explain best practices, implement new tools to smooth out workflows, or host Q&A sessions where everyone can talk about their ideas.

Bonus- Agile, Scrum, or Kanban Methodology

I put this as a bonus, because it is essentially table stakes in modern software development, and to be honest if you are able to demonstrate the other 5 skills then you are likely already using one or two of these methods.

Nonetheless, I felt I should mention them here. But how do you build these skills if you are not already in a PM role?

Skill Building Strategies

Online PM courses. While not the best way, they can at least give you the basics of managing software development. Here are a few: Coursera Google Project Management, Udemy Agile Fundamentals, Kanbanize (Free).

Get out there and build. Get a group of friends that know how to code and work with them on building a small app with you heading the product.

Work with your current TPM. Ask your current TPM to lead the daily stand-up for a certain piece of the product your team is responsible for.

Other Materials to help you learn

This video interview with Rodion Lyayfer from Evgeny Kim is AMAZING. I used it as an additional research point and I would highly recommend watching it all the way through.

I am sure that you have heard of (and maybe even read) Cracking the PM Interview, but did you know that there is a follow-up to that book titled Cracking the PM Career? While it isn’t specific to Technical Product Management, I would still recommend reading it if you are truly passionate about growing your Technical Product Management career.

Conclusion

Technical Product Manager is one of the most in-demand positions with the huge increase in SaaS companies, so if you want to get into the industry these 5 skills will definitely help get you hired.