Introduction
The product manager is responsible for the success of the product and its features. As a result, they play a vital role in defining what makes up a product and how it should be structured. They are also responsible for communicating with stakeholders such as customers, partners, and internal teams about their vision for the future direction of their company’s offerings.
To succeed as a Product Manager, you need to have strong leadership skills along with excellent communication skills so that you can work well with your team members and management team members alike. You will also need good organizational skills since this position requires someone who can manage multiple projects simultaneously while keeping track of all deadlines at hand (e.g., launch date).
What is a product manager?
A product manager is responsible for the development and maintenance of a product. The job of a product manager is to define what the product should be, how it will function, and who will use it.
As a Product Manager, you are responsible for:
- Defining the scope of your role within your company or organization. For example, if you’re in charge of creating new features for an existing software application, then this could be called “the feature manager” position (or perhaps just “the feature”). You may also create new products entirely independently; this would be called “the entrepreneur” or “sole proprietor.”
Responsibilities
- Oversee the product development process.
- Coordinate with the design, marketing, and engineering teams.
- Ensure that the product meets the needs of its target audience.
- Manage a team of product managers/developers who work on different aspects of your product (e.g., user interface design). * Manage a backlog where you can track all new ideas or suggestions for improvement in your products based on user feedback or market trends etc.
Required Skills
- Product management skills
Product managers are responsible for the overall vision, strategy and direction of a product. They are required to ensure that their projects meet the needs of customers and users by identifying new markets, developing innovative products and services, and ensuring that existing ones continue to provide value.
Read here to know about – The top Five Skills for a Product Manager in 2022
- Strong communication skills
Product managers must be able to communicate effectively with internal teams as well as external partners to ensure successful implementations of new products or services.
Read more about – Effective Communication Skills
- Analytical skills
Product Managers may also need to understand techniques used to collect information like structured interviews, unstructured interviews, and observations, as well as utilizing methodologies like market research or survey questionnaires.
Salary
Now first thing first, job titles related to product managers could be confusing. Some companies give different names to product managers depending on their roles and responsibilities. But for the sake of simplicity, I will tell you the general path.
Now, as far as the career trajectory is concerned, you start as an intern in college, which is the initial stage so focus on gaining good experience and hands-on experience. Your stipend would be around 10k-50k during this period.
Depending on the startup you choose, your salary could vary differently
Now next thing is Associate product manager– famously known as the APM- will be your job after graduation.
As an Assistant Product Manager, your duties will involve helping the product manager plan, direct, and effectively launch new features. So basically, what they do is they carry out all of the duties of a product manager without the pressure of total accountability. So some of the work would be to collect data, do user research, coordinate with stakeholders, crunch data, and make PRDs. If you don’t know about PRDs, comment below, and we will develop a video very soon.
For the salary, your salary as an APM would be around six lakhs to twelve lakhs.
If you do not start as an APM, then you could start as a product analyst or a product designer, or a product marketer. and they can also transition to product managers in the later parts of their careers. Again, the salary range would be similar to that of an APM, say roughly about six to eight lakhs, may not necessarily go up to twelve. After working as an APM for 1 to two years, you get promoted to product manager.
Now here, you are not assisting anymore. You are responsible for a feature, or a group of features, or maybe the whole app itself also. For Zomato, it could be a recommendation feature, or let us say; you are responsible for the whole onboarding. So you are now looking after specific things or a group of things. You also coordinate with different verticals involved, like the marketers, engineers, and designers.
Now the salary of a PM would range between 10 lakhs to 18 lakhs per annum.
After gaining experience as a product manager, you get promoted to the group product manager or the senior product manager, which happens between three to five years of work experience. Now your responsibility and focus will be very different, oriented to leadership. You will be handling a bunch of product managers or assistant product managers. Now the role is to lead all the projects, work with cross-functional teams, and deal with stakeholders. The salary range would be around 18 to 40 Lakhs.
After becoming a senior product manager, the next role in most cases is the director of the product manager. It is a very senior-level role, and you would be dealing with many product managers in general. The salary would range from 35 lakhs to 1 crore, averaging 50-52 lakhs. After this, you could aim for the utmost highest position, that is the CPO- CHIEF PRODUCT OFFICER. The salary would typically range between two crores to five crores.
A product manager is responsible for taking the product from conception to fruition.
A product manager is responsible for taking the product from conception to fruition. They are responsible for its success or failure and have a lot of say in how to market it or price it.
The role of a product manager involves:
- Creating an idea for your company’s next big thing as well as deciding what features it should have;
- Finding ways to make money off these ideas;
- Working with engineers on creating prototypes so that you can test them out before launching into production;
- Assisting with marketing strategies like which channels you want your ads shown on or who you want selling your products (iPad vs. iPhone).
Conclusion
When you are looking for a job as a product manager, you will want to find one that pays well. There are many different industries out there that offer positions as product managers, but the average pay rate is higher in some of them than in others. The salary of a product manager depends on various factors like the type of organization and your level of experience. It goes without saying that as your experience grows, your salary is bound to grow. So focus on enriching your experience for now!
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