Cracking the PM Interview: How to Land a Product Manager Job in Technology (Cracking the Interview & Career)
Gayle Laakmann McDowell, Jackie Bavaroamazon.com
Cracking the PM Interview: How to Land a Product Manager Job in Technology (Cracking the Interview & Career)
As feedback comes in through dogfooding, usability studies, and experiments, the PM identifies the most important issues and iterates on the feature design to find better solutions. Prioritization is one of the product manager’s most important functions at this point; if the team were to fix every bug and build every new feature idea, the product w
... See moreConsider what it is that drove the success or lack of success. It’s okay to fail sometimes, but you need to know why you failed.
Marketing folks focus on getting users into the product, while product managers define what happens once the user is in the product.
Product managers are responsible for identifying problems and opportunities, picking which ones to go after, and then making sure the team comes up with great solutions, either by thinking of the solution themselves or by working with the designers and engineers.
For example, whenever possible, see your projects through to the end. Focus on understanding the things you did and the outcomes of your actions. Understand not only if your outcome was successful, but by what metrics it was successful—or not.
While some product managers have project management as a large part of their job, most do not. Project managers are mostly concerned with timelines and coordination. While they might be responsible for gathering the project requirements, they don’t have much say in identifying and choosing the requirements.
Since the product manager’s role in product design can vary so much across teams, it’s a great thing to ask about during your interview. Ask about who you’ll be working with on your core and extended team. Find out how much of your time will be spent writing specs and how much you’ll be working with designers. Learn where the balance is between PMs
... See moreDecline in traffic can be the result of a decline in the number of new visitors, a decline in the number of returning visitors, or a decline in the engagement
A particular page on Facebook results in an error 10% of the time. What could cause this?