How you communicate is simultaneously the most obvious and the most subtle information you convey during an interview. The importance of being a strong communicator is reflected in the intangibles that define a great product… Read More »Communicating Well In Your PM Interview
(and what good answers look like) Let’s get something straight: there is no question that is so insightful, so incredibly, mind-blowingly smart that it will move a candidate from the “reject” to the the “accept”… Read More »Questions To Ask After An Interview
In my experience, “analytical ability” is the most nebulous trait to be tested for in interviews. Some companies (mistakenly) equate it with “analytics”, asking you to set success metrics. I think of analytical as the… Read More »Showing Analytical Ability During Interviews
Before landing at ChartHop, I spent almost half a year interviewing for product manager roles remotely at a variety of tech companies during the pandemic. Through trial and error, I’ve compiled a list of advice… Read More »Advice for Interviewing Remotely
In the product management canon, there are two prominent definitions of “product sense”: From Jackie Bavaro: “Product Sense is the ability to understand what makes a product great. It’s the ability to hone in on… Read More »Showing Product Sense During Interviews
I want to share the resume I used when applying for the Yahoo APM program, where I spent the first two years of my career before joining ChartHop. This is by no means intended as a guide… Read More »My Resume When I Became an APM
Going into my senior year of university I expected to graduate into a software engineering job, so finding myself in an APM program with zero formal product experience was unexpected. Those two years, however, ended… Read More »How I Maximized My APM Experience
It’s practically a truism that aspiring product managers should start side projects in order to show some combination of ambition, product sense, grit, technical skills, motivation, and then some. But how do you actually approach working on… Read More »Side Projects
6:30am Morning routines are important, and mine currently involves reading for half an hour before going on my morning run. Reading and running are exercise for my mind and body, and it’s satisfying getting them… Read More »A Day in the Life of an APM
I spoke with Grace Yeung, co-founder of Product Buds and incoming PM at Salesforce, about her experience as a product manager intern and how other PM interns can thrive in the role. This interview has… Read More »PM Intershps: An Interview with Grace Yeung
There’s a standard canon around how best to approach one-on-ones with your manager. A less common flavor is for product managers having one-on-ones with the direct engineering team they work with. To be upfront, this can be… Read More »One-on-One’s with Engineers
I recently bought an M1 MacBook Air, and it is fast. The key component is its M1 ARM processor, created by Apple. Over the past few years, Apple’s custom-built processors for its iPhones and iPads have… Read More »Why Are M1 Macs So Fast?
Common advice for new product managers is to “loop in engineering” early in the process of feature development. There’s a class of advice that I personally take issue with: advice where the plan and the goal are… Read More »How to “Loop In Engineering”
I’ve written a lot about the importance of building side projects and the skills they develop in product managers. In this article, we turn tactical; I believe a personal website is the perfect first side… Read More »A Personal Website is the Best Starter Project
A serious, practical guide for maintaining your carefully crafted work persona. Prepare a list of generic questions and statements that sort of make sense regardless of context. Try “You’re breaking up, I couldn’t hear what… Read More »5 Things to Do When You Don’t Understand
This article is cross-post with PM101, a product and program management blog written by Thaisa Fernandes. A big thank you to Thaisa for sharing her time and knowledge. If you like this article, there’s tons… Read More »Frameworks to Keep in Mind
I made a tool called BlogBacklog, which scrapes a blog for links to its content, then emails those links to you on a regular cadence. Lots of blogs have newsletters for new content, but only a static archive… Read More »Lessons From My Latest Side Project (BlogBacklog)
This may seem antithetical to this site’s founding purpose, but you don’t actually need a technical background to become a product manager. Let me share some ways in which my CS degree doesn’t help me… Read More »Where My CS Degree Doesn’t Help
I spoke with Grace Yeung, co-founder of Product Buds and incoming PM at Salesforce, about how she developed as a product manager without having studied CS. This interview has been edited and lightly arranged for clarity, with my… Read More »PMing with a Non-Technical Background: An Interview with Grace Young
On the face of it, code reviews seem to work against product managers. They delay releases, take up everyone’s time, and don’t have tangible outputs. Plus, you can validate features yourself, and often have tests… Read More »Why PMs Should Care About Code Review
This article is the first of a two-part miniseries on side projects. In this article, I’ll describe a failed side project and the lessons you can take away from it. The next article will accompany… Read More »My Side Project Failed
To empathize with your engineering team, you need to think like a programmer. I hear all the time from friends and family that I approach things in a “nerdy” or “robotic” way. I find this to be… Read More »Non-Programming Programming Exercises
As an APM interviewer, one of my questions was “Design a self-driving ride-share car experience.” More often than not, the interviewee would describe some variant of “tap your phone to unlock the car”, implying the… Read More »Why Technical Details Matter in Interviews
David Smith is an independent Apple developer, part of a larger universe of tech and Apple commentators. He is unique in having published 59 apps over his 12 year career as a one-person app maker, his most… Read More »Widgetsmith and Side Projects
Aspiring product managers know that “product sense” is a necessary trait to develop — many articles (Jackie Bavaro’s is a good start) have been written on what it is and how to develop it. I want… Read More »Technical Product Sense
The most frequent question I get is “How technical do product managers need to be?” It’s a reasonable question that, like a lot of elements of product management, doesn’t have a straightforward answer. For those… Read More »How Technical Should Product Managers Be?
A Discussion on Early-Career Product Management I had the pleasure of recording a conversation with Diego Granados (PM at Microsoft) for his YouTube series. We cover the whole gamut of my product management career thus… Read More »A Conversation with Diego Granados
It’s commonly understood that product managers at tech companies should be technical, but the explanation of why typically ends at “because you’re building a software product”. This is true, but its conciseness belies the higher-order… Read More »Why Product Managers Should Be Technical
A Product Manager’s Perspective The “stereotypical” tech product is a mobile app. It’s the most tangible form of technology, one that almost everyone has experience with and opinions about. In this article, we’ll discuss the… Read More »Mobile Apps: A Product Manager’s Perspective
An Introduction to Security The mentality of computer security is somewhat non-standard, making it difficult to empathize with when the need arises. A working understanding of the fundamental principles, along with grasping some of the… Read More »Passwords: An Introduction to Security
Co-Creator of APM Map This is an interview with Jeffrey Fabian, co-creator of APM Map, a site I’m sure many readers are already familiar with. Jeffrey is a full-time software engineer who helped built APM… Read More »Interview: Jeffrey Fabian
One of the best ways to gain technical understanding is to observe how established companies reason about and write about their technical challenges. As a product manager, being able to read between the lines of… Read More »Breaking Down Grammarly’s Frontend Complexity
One of the best ways to gain technical understanding is to observe how established companies reason about and write about their technical challenges. As a product manager, being able to read between the lines of… Read More »Breaking Down Netflix’s Video Gatekeeper
One of the best ways to gain technical understanding is to observe how established companies reason about and write about their technical challenges. As a product manager, being able to read between the lines of… Read More »Breaking Down Dropbox’s Sync Engine Rebuild
via Slack’s Invite Spam Solution One of the best ways to gain technical understanding is to observe how established companies reason about and write about their technical challenges. As a product manager, being able to… Read More »Introduction to Machine Learning
This article is adapted from the Programming Languages section of the Algorithms Interview Prep Course. Find out more and get access to the course here, which includes an expanded version of this post that covers even more languages. There… Read More »Backend Programming Languages
One of the best ways to gain technical understanding is to observe how established companies reason about and write about their technical challenges. As a product manager, being able to read between the lines of… Read More »Breaking Down Facebook’s Redesign
This article is adapted from the Programming Languages section of the Algorithms Interview Prep Course. Find out more and get access to the course here, which includes an expanded version of this post that covers even more languages. In… Read More »Programming Languages for Web Development
Why are some features trivially easy to implement, while others require a whole rearchitecting of the system to achieve? One of the main reasons is proper (or improper) abstractions within the codebase. Product managers need… Read More »Abstraction
Software Engineering Terminology Part 6 This is part of a multi-part series of software engineering terminology explainers for product managers. Concepts Explained: Pipeline CI/CD (Continuous Integration / Continuous Deployment) Environments Build Deploy Writing code isn’t… Read More »DevOps
Software Engineering Terminology Part 5 This is part of a multi-part series of software engineering terminology explainers for product managers. Concepts Explained: Testing Regression Coverage Building a feature doesn’t just involve writing code. The next… Read More »Why is Testing Important?
Software Engineering Terminology Part 4 This is part of a multi-part series of software engineering terminology explainers for product managers. Concepts Explained: GUI Native apps Cross-platform Responsive Breakpoints Remember how we talked about early computers… Read More »Frontend Development
Software Engineering Terminology Part 3 This is part of a multi-part series of software engineering terminology explainers for product managers. Concepts Explained: Domain Cookie Server Cache An application on the web starts with a user… Read More »Web Development
Web apps are one of the “default” product types that product managers should have experience with. In this article, we’ll cover what a web app is, along with its fundamental components, each of which will… Read More »What are Web Apps?
Software Engineering Terminology Part 2 This is part of a multi-part series of software engineering terminology explainers for product managers. Concepts Explained: IDE Version Control Git At its core, code is just text. You could… Read More »Software Development Processes
Terminal CLI Scripting In the early days of programming, computers were expensive — a university could afford just a single computer. The computer was housed in a room somewhere and to access it, you used… Read More »Elements of Coding
APIs are the backbone of modern software development, to the point that they’re just assumed to be understood. However, a fundamental understanding of what makes a good API will bring nuance to the conversation and… Read More »What is an API?
Introduction What if I told you you could piece together your own degree in Product Management at the school you’re attending right now? Almost no schools have any formal coursework that teach product management, but… Read More »Majoring in Product Management