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On this information, we’ll outline what a technical product supervisor is, distinguish between a technical PM and an everyday product supervisor, and overview the talents and competencies required to satisfy the technical product supervisor’s obligations.
We’ll additionally overview how a technical PM spends their time on a day-to-day foundation and share some ideas that will help you nail your technical product supervisor interview.
Desk of contents
What’s a technical product supervisor?
The product supervisor and technical product supervisor roles are broadly outlined and typically it’s arduous to know the variations and nuances between them.
Technical product supervisor, typically referred to as inbound product supervisor, is a product administration position that comes with further obligations that require technical data and expertise.
That mentioned, a technical product supervisor isn’t anticipated to do any programming or coding; they simply want to know and admire the engineering and technical features of the product growth lifecycle.
On this information, we’ll discover extra features of the roles and obligations, the distinction between a technical product supervisor and an everyday product supervisor, and what a typical day-to-day appears to be like like.
Product supervisor vs. technical product supervisor
Usually organizations have technical product managers and product managers performing alongside each other with little readability as to the excellence between the roles. Whereas there may be a point of overlap, the roles are designed to concentrate on totally different features of the product administration lifecycle.
As talked about earlier, the technical product supervisor is usually known as an inbound product supervisor. This implies the particular person on this position is anticipated to know, approve, and collaborate on features of engineering , technical structure, and design for the product.
Due to this fact, a technical product supervisor should excel at working with engineers, architects, and designers. Although not anticipated to code or program the applying itself, the technical product supervisor wants to know and admire all of the features of the technical design, expertise structure, consumer expertise (UX) design, and choices round these.
The matrix under elucidates some key variations between the technical product supervisor and conventional product supervisor roles:
| Technical product supervisor | Product supervisor | |
| Alternativee title | Inbound product supervisor | Outbound product supervisor |
| Works with | Works with engineering, UX design, architects, product homeowners, system analysts | Works with buyer success, gross sales, advertising groups , different product managers, enterprise analysts |
| Actions/duties | Approves and collaborates on technical designs, expertise structure choices, UX designs, technical tradeoffs | Market analysis, gross sales demos, growing advertising collaterals |
| Possession | ||
| Background, expertise, and {qualifications} |
|
|
| Focus | Product growth | Product definition and go-to-market |
Widespread obligations of the product supervisor and technical product supervisor embody:
The place does the technical PM sit inside the group?
The technical product supervisor is mostly internally going through (therefore the inbound product supervisor title). Due to this fact, the technical product supervisor falls beneath the identical organizational construction as a product supervisor and experiences, relying on their seniority, to a senior technical product supervisor, group technical product supervisor, employees/principal technical product supervisor, or head of product.
The technical product supervisor works intently with growth groups, system analysts, and technical architects.
What are the obligations of a technical product supervisor?
A technical product supervisor is accountable for:
- Defining product objectives and imaginative and prescient
- Creating and proudly owning the product roadmap
- Working with cross-functional groups
- Understanding and proselytizing agile methodologies and practices corresponding to scrum, kanban, and extra
- Creating and proudly owning the product backlog and product necessities doc (PRD)
- Authoring epics, options, and consumer tales
- Working intently with scrum groups
- Understanding the software program growth lifecycle (SDLC)
- Speaking with numerous stakeholders, together with product management, engineering management, expertise groups, and system analysts
- Evaluating and signing off on expertise concerns, expertise trade-offs, and the product expertise roadmap
How do technical product managers spend their time?
A typical day within the lifetime of a technical product supervisor could be centered on conferences and interactions, managing duties and instruments, and preparatory work towards upcoming deliverables.
Let’s take a look at what precisely falls beneath these buckets and roughly what proportion of the TPM’s day is devoted to every class of duties:
Conferences and interactions
On condition that the technical product supervisor works extensively with the engineering groups, the conferences they attend are closely skewed towards interactions with engineering/expertise groups and consumer expertise groups.
Some examples of conferences a technical product supervisor may attend embody:
A technical product supervisor would additionally attend conferences with product management and the peer product group, corresponding to:
- Product imaginative and prescient and aim setting (often on the stage of inception or product kickoff)
- Product roadmapping opinions and discussions
Managing duties and instruments
The technical product supervisor works individually on assigned duties and on updating the instruments (corresponding to agile undertaking administration instruments, and so on.). Actions falling beneath this class embody:
- Updating and sustaining the product roadmap utilizing roadmapping instruments
- Updating and sustaining the product backlog utilizing backlog instruments (corresponding to Jira)
- Writing and defining epics and consumer tales utilizing backlog instruments
- Creating or approving UX wireframes, mockups, and prototypes utilizing UX instruments (corresponding to Figma, Axure, and so on.)
- Creating and sustaining product necessities paperwork (PRDs)
Miscellaneous duties for upcoming deliverables
Technical product managers spend the rest of their time doing miscellaneous work towards future deliverables. These duties may embody:
- Scheduling conferences
- Reviewing the technical debt
- Engaged on product thought management content material (e.g., white papers, weblog articles, and so on.)
- Getting ready the dash backlog
Easy methods to put together for a technical product supervisor interview
In the event you’re trying to transfer right into a technical product supervisor position, you’ll wish to reveal you can fulfill all of the obligations and competencies described above.
The technical product supervisor interview will seemingly contact upon:
Related expertise
Corporations trying to rent a technical product supervisor will search for candidates who’ve:
- Expertise growing merchandise and a product portfolio leveraging quite a lot of expertise suites and landscapes (e.g., SaaS and rising applied sciences corresponding to Net 2.0/3.0, AI, machine studying, blockchain, and so on.)
- Fundamental data of the area for which the product or utility is designed (e.g., healthcare, fintech, edtech, and so on.)
- Expertise working with expertise structure and technical design groups
- Experiencing working with engineering growth (scrum) groups
- Expertise working with UX design groups
- {Qualifications} and certifications in product administration, software program engineering, agile growth, and SDLC methodologies
Technique and resolution making
The questions will seemingly be just like these requested throughout a product supervisor interview. It is best to put together to talk articulately with clear examples about your choices round:
- Growing new product options, overcoming product function limitations, and both assembly or strategically lacking deadlines
- Technical feasibility, expertise structure, and points associated to the expertise roadmap
- Tradeoffs associated to technical debt
- Person expertise design and different concerns
- Any conflicts that arose whereas working with engineering/scrum groups
You must also be ready to reply case research questions that cowl a number of of the choices outlined above.
Lastly, don’t be shocked in the event that they ship you residence with a case research project.
Gentle expertise
The technical product supervisor interview may even seemingly embody questions round your delicate expertise. Be ready to speak about your expertise associated to the next:
- Downside fixing
- Battle administration
- Time administration
- Management
- Staff constructing
- Empathy
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