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The summer is long, accompanied by bird humming, and a burst of keyboard knocking sounds from the programmers of major Internet companies. Just as programmers enjoy the happy hours of their own code, the appearance of a person makes the smile on his face disappear gradually…because he saw his natural enemy – product manager!

In the IT world, programmers and product managers spend most of their time like a pair of friends, often at work and not convinced. Many programmers think that product managers don’t understand technology + “too many things”, and product managers think that programmers are not strong enough to execute and think about dogmas, and even give each other “five major crimes.”

(Image courtesy of Network, copyright belongs to the original author)

(Image courtesy of Network, copyright belongs to the original author)

In this long-running struggle between programmers and product managers, there is often a fierce exchange of fire between the two sides. There are a lot of good programmers written by Code, but there are very few product managers who are really good and can make programmers convinced.

Now, many programmers may be heartbroken. The latest data shows that product managers’ salaries have surpassed programmers to become the highest-paying jobs!

Recently, Hired’s latest payroll report for 2019 technicians shows that in the United States, the average salary of programmers and product managers in all major technical positions continues to grow, but starting in 2016 The average annual salary of the product manager has exceeded that of the software engineer, and it is even bigger than the salary increase of the programmer!

(The average annual salary change of major technical positions, the picture is from the Hired report, the copyright belongs to the original author)

Many programmers may be even more convinced. Why can a person who does not risk the bald risk code reach the annual salary of millions? What kind of position is the product manager, and what kind of person can become a product manager?

Why can a product manager become the highest paid occupation?

Some people say that Product Manager is actually the CEO of a project, and is responsible for a product. Based on the company’s strategy, they will coordinate multiple resources and promote the products they are responsible for to meet the planned goals.

In a nutshell, the product manager is positioned as shown below. It is the intersection and key link between business, design and technology. They don’t just care about one aspect of technology, design or marketing, but consider all of this work. Inside.

(Image courtesy of Network, copyright belongs to the original author)

In other words, in each business segment of the following figure, the product manager must participate in it, cooperate with the personnel in each business field, and lead them to jointly complete the product research, design and launch.

(The responsibility of the product manager, the image is from Medium, the copyright belongs to the original author)

In terms of their specific work, we interviewed a number of in-service PMs from first-tier technology companies such as Google, Amazon, and Facebook. They also chatted with product managers at home in BAT, summing up them at each stage. The duties of the job are as follows (including but not limited to):

From the point of view of responsibilities, the product manager really took a piece of money, and he was interested in the market, design, technology, etc., not only to understand the technology but also to deal with the personnel of various departments, andResponsible for the quality of the product, is a job that requires emotional intelligence and business to do online, Xiaoyan listened to the big head, it is no wonder that the product manager’s salary is high ~

Want to talk to Silicon Valley Technology’s product managers and learn more about them? The friends can identify the QR code of the picture below and enter the group to communicate with them!

Chinese and American differences in product managers

So, what about the relationship between product managers and programmers in Silicon Valley?

After visiting us, we found that their relationship is to ease a lot, and the most important reason is the difference in positioning of product managers between Chinese and American companies. By looking at Google, Youtube and other Silicon Valley US technology companies’ recruitment requirements for product managers, we can find that most of Silicon Valley’s technology companies require job seekers to have computer-related learning or work experience, but also require activity leadership experience. Or business management capabilities.

But in terms of responsibilities, American product managers tend to work more in the market or business, they may be able to connect multiple engineering teams, more like a global Thinking about the realization of business value, so many people in the United States think that product manager position is the cradle of CEO or entrepreneur. In the face of technical and product issues, product managers are more of a participant and collaborator role, let engineers do the lead.

(Google and youtbe product manager’s latest recruitment needs, images from the web, copyright belongs to the original author)

But the work of domestic product managers pays more attention to the products themselves. They pay attention to the realization of technology and the launch of products, and control the whole process of product design, production and distribution.

In a project, it can be said that the product manager determines the “life and death” of the project, and the R&D and engineering teams tend to play more of an auxiliary product manager role.

However, under the requirements of this kind of work, the recruitment threshold of many domestic companies is relatively low, and there is not much emphasis on the technical ability of job seekers, which also leads to the difficulty of product managers often encountering difficulties in practical work. The problem caused the contradiction between the programmer and the product manager.

(Tencent’s latest product manager recruitment requirements, images from the Internet, copyright belongs to the original author)

Although product managers and programmers “love each other”, but a technical and market double excellent product manager is often a team, a company is eager for. In the US, product managers have also become one of the most popular jobs for young people, they believe that product managers are a passionate and imaginative position with the best access to the best The product, design and business team can enhance their technical skills, exercise business thinking and improve communication and coordination.

What kind of person can become a product manager?

In fact, in the field of Internet, software engineers, UI designers, data analysts and other positions have corresponding professional and peer-to-peer delivery talents in universities. So far, the position of product manager, no university, which major is completely counterpart, everyone can say that they are all turning to the past.

So, who is suitable as a product manager? Must know the technology to write code? Can you learn a product manager or a business manager?

First of all, the product manager is not an extensive Title, but actually has a detailed classification. Currently, product managers can be subdivided into: mobile client products, WEB products, user products, content products, tool products, and so on. Each type of product is very different, and even the working logic can be completely different.

(Product Manager Subdivision, the picture comes from the network, the copyright belongs to the original author)
 

The current trend is that the bigger the technology company, the higher the degree of subdivision of the product. Taking Google as an example, searching for the recruitment information of its product managers will jump out of the product manager recruitment needs in different fields or different projects.

When recruiting for the next year, they value the technical background of the graduates and the leadership and communication skills reflected in the relevant activities. In social recruitment, the job areas and work experience of the job seekers are more valued.

(Google Product Manager Job Recruitment Category)

How can I become a good product manager?

So, how can you become a high-paying, influential, product manager with no professional bottlenecks?

First of all, you must have basic technical skills. In fact, in many occupations, it is the programmer who may turn to the product manager. A technically savvy product manager can communicate the needs efficiently with the technical team, while at the same time controlling the products and projects. Of course, it will also be avoided by being designed or team of engineers ridiculed, looked down, and fooled because they don’t understand technology.

Understanding technology must add points to the transformation, but this does not mean that it must be a programmer to be a product manager. In addition to understanding technology, a good product manager also identifies areas of interest and understanding, as well as logic, business, communication and many other aspects.