Engineering to Product Management
Background
As I grew up, there were two subjects that were emphasized over and over in terms of their importance in our home, math and science (of course, I really loved art as well but the primary focus was always on math and science). Add to this a formative trip to visit NASA’s Goddard Space Center as a teenager, as well as my love of the movies “Sneakers” and “Apollo 13”, and my fate was sealed - I knew I was going into engineering. Now, this confidence did waver a bit as I changed majors a few times during undergrad, but ultimately I ended up with a degree in computer engineering and a minor in math (and went on to obtain an M.S. in Computer Science). Upon graduation, I started out my career developing software and solving interesting problems in the aerospace industry in Colorado.
Then, around 2012, an enticing opportunity was presented to me to join Boeing’s product innovation group up in Washington state and I jumped at the opportunity. During this time I also decided to return to graduate school for a second masters degree, this time in software management from Carnegie Mellon University. The Boeing product innovation team that I joined was a new team in Boeing Commercial Airplanes with a mandate to solve problems in airplane composites manufacturing. Our team was a cross-functional team with a variety of engineering, math, and science disciplines. I was in awe of the amount of brain power I was surrounded by during this time - every member of the team was driven, passionate, and incredibly intelligent (one of our team members went on to join the NASA astronaut corps, Warren Hoburg). It just so happened that at this same time I also started to learn about a relatively new role popping up in the tech industry called “Product Management” and I became VERY interested in learning everything I could about what it meant to be a product manager.
At first, I’ll admit I got it confused a bit with the “product owner” role found in agile software processes, but as I matured in my understanding, I knew that Product Management was a role I was destined to embody. But, I was also conflicted because I spent so many years studying and working to become an engineer. My internal emotional conflict meant that I was concerned about losing respect from my peers in engineering if I decided to make the switch to product and wondering if my education, work experience, and respect would be thrown out the window if I made this change to product. This is why, at first, I wanted to serve in somewhat of a hybrid role, where I was still writing code but also performing duties expected of a product manager. I was hoping that I could satisfy both my desire to become a product manager and my fear of losing respect from fellow engineers by straddling the two disciplines. The problem was that I took the “technical” part of a “technical product manager” a bit too far because I was a bit too involved in the software development process which resulted in confusion about where the line was with respect to my product duties versus my technical duties. I also found that if I was writing code part time in this hybrid engineer/product-manager role that I would sometimes lose sight on the problems we were solving and think more about the technical output or features we were building versus the actual customer problem we were solving.
Looking back on it, I was in a hybrid role for a few years, straddling product and engineering duties in my role as a technical product manager. As time progressed, while I still remained technical, I eventually moved away from my involvement in the solution space and offering opinions about how the problem should be solved but rather shifted to the why behind the problems we tackled which opened up a whole new world for me. I later learned that this is a fairly common problem for engineers who move into product due to the time spent operating in the solution space before moving to product which can be a hard habit to break. I was able to navigate out of this space partly due to a function of time and by learning from others, speaking to mentors, and devouring as much material as I could about product (courses, books, podcasts, articles, workshops). The good news is that once I realized I was still straddling this line of engineering and product and the confusion it was causing, I decided to completely commit to Product and I have been loving it ever since. I am incredibly grateful for my time in engineering and attribute much of my success in product to time spent in engineering. To anyone out there considering the same change, I can say that it is completely worth it and you’ll love life in product!
Tactics
Regarding the actual “how” to move from engineering to product? There are many ways to make the jump, here are a few ideas that can help as you think about what works best for your particular situation.
Title Change in Existing Role
My personal experience involved product focused education, conducting deep research into the role of product, volunteering for anything that looked like a product activity while I was still an engineer, and then speaking with my manager about wishing to move into product and eventually having my title changed to that of a Product Manager. This path allowed me to be able to leverage my personal relationships with my existing team and afforded me some patience while I transitioned to this new role. One of the challenges, as mentioned earlier, was that this path meant that those in my immediate team still looked to me to perform duties associated with my previous role as an engineer. However, that said, once I officially had the title of “product manager” it meant that the wall preventing me from breaking into product was gone and I could pursue future product opportunities.
Associate Product Manager Pipeline
Another option is to look into associate product manager pipeline programs where companies hire you directly into an associate product manager role. Here you go through training, mentoring, and work on real-world projects as you learn the ropes of product management. This is a great option, especially if you’re early in your career (or a recent college graduate), because you’ll be learning from passionate product managers who see your potential, and you will be in a structured program that ensures a consistent training experience. You will then be able to leverage this training and you will already have an official product title to your name that you can now utilize going forward for future product roles.
Formal Education
This one is a bit challenging and I’ll elaborate on it a bit more in the “Challenges” section but the TLDR is that traditional formal education in product management can be hard to come by. There are some academic programs that offer graduate degrees in product management and other traditional programs that offer product management as a course in part of a larger degree curriculum but a complete undergraduate degree in product management is not very common. However, with that said, there are a lot of certification programs, online courses, and other media that can help you in your journey towards becoming a product manager. If anything, enrolling in these courses can help you to understand more about the role and potentially help you get your foot in the door. Additionally, many of these programs offer job placement at the conclusion of the course or bootcamp which can help you to get that first product role.
Mentorship
Mentorship was a key part of my journey where I sought out existing product managers to help me as I tried to wrap my brain around this thing called product management. As mentioned earlier, it wasn’t the only part of my strategy but it certainly helped as I started to figure out a path towards product. It is important to seek out a product mentor who you trust and have a good rapport with as you seek feedback on your current career journey, resume, and how to achieve your goal of becoming a product manager.
Challenges
Speaking from my own experience, there are a few challenges that you may experience in changing roles from software engineering to product management.
Product Focused Education
You might be able to tell that I LOVE education and learning as much as possible (I’d probably be a professional student if I could). However, Product has never really had a dedicated undergraduate academic degree program that aspiring product managers can pursue. This doesn’t mean that there aren’t education opportunities available for Product Managers, just that you might not see it in your undergraduate curriculum. The way that I managed this problem was to get my hands on as many resources as possible (to include books, conferences, workshops, and podcasts). I also found product mentors to help guide me, provide feedback, and review my resume. Lastly, I looked at my experience at the time and tried to close gaps in my experience and knowledge related to product management (which was mostly in the realm of business and management knowledge as I had focused quite a bit of my education up until that time on my technical skills). If you are interested in learning about what sorts of education opportunities are available for product managers, please take a look at https://www.grantcahill.com/blog/productmanagementresources
Saying Goodbye to Life as an Engineer
Product Managers typically come from one of three backgrounds to include a business role, design role, or technical role. For myself, I came to Product from a technical role. I had gone to school for engineering and derived a lot of my identity from that of an engineer. I had the respect of my peers and I worried that in shifting to product that I would lose the respect of those around me. As a result, when I started taking on more product activities I still had one foot in engineering and would still write code and perform code reviews for developers on my team. On one hand, it meant that I maintained the respect of my fellow engineers but on the other it meant that I wasn’t performing to the best of my ability as a product manager and I wasn’t fully committed to the role of a product manager quite yet. It wasn’t until I attended a product workshop led by Gib Biddle where I asked the question about being a technical product manager and straddling the line of an engineer at the same time. Gib’s advice was profound in that he told me that I needed to commit to that of a product manager or that of an engineer because straddling the two would limit my potential in either. I still remember that immediately following that product workshop, I made the decision to commit to product and that is when my career started accelerating. Whether you find yourself coming to Product from business, design, tech or something else entirely - it is important to respect your background and experience and use that to be aware of your areas of strength as well as areas for growth and commit to this new role in Product. You can still absolutely be a Technical Product Manager but be careful not to confuse your role as a product manager with that of an engineer.
Ambiguity of the Role
One of the best things and the worst things about product is that it can be quite different depending on the company. Product managers can be sourced from a variety of disciplines with very different educational backgrounds which means that the formal definition of a role that is common with many other careers rarely exists in product. It is getting better and better as the role matures in the industry but unfortunately the ambiguity still exists quite a bit. Additionally, many companies are at different stages of maturation with respect to how they view and utilize the product role. Further, while agile software development practices have arguably done a great deal for software development, the role of a “product owner” in agile has made it a bit confusing to some companies in how best to create and define the role of a product manager which can make it confusing to find the best role for you as you start to look for that first product manager role. The best way to solve for this challenge is to start with learning as much as you can about what it means to be a product manager and what it means to be a product owner. Learn about the differences and when you look through job requisitions, try to get a feeling in how that company views the role. Building on this knowledge, do your research on the different companies and industries you are interested in to see how they approach product and use these learnings to be intentional about which roles you wish to pursue to ensure you don’t end up somewhere that does not align with your expectations of the role.
Wrap Up
Changing roles or careers at any stage in life can be daunting. It is important to keep an eye on your goal and understand why you want to make the change. The good news in moving from engineering to product is that it is becoming more and more common and you most likely have crossed paths with product managers in the tech industry who can help you with this transition. During this career transition period, it is important to be patient as you embark on this journey to product and that you continue to educate yourself, network, and make your intentions known. Product is an extremely rewarding career and it is important to remember that while you can always go back to engineering, once you have made the move to product you should commit to it for at least a few years in order to get the most out of your new career. Engineering is an amazing foundation for a role in product and your technical background will help immensely as you navigate this new career of a Product Manager.