1. What inspired you to break into product?

When I finally learned about product management

My start-up experience in college is what inspired me to break into product. After spending summers doing computational intense internships, I learned that I loved being immersed in technology, but did not enjoy staring at a screen all day and working deep in a code base.

I am grateful because those summers improved my coding skills immensely. However, I realized what fascinated me the most was the problem solving and innovation that programming provides. With this eye-opening experience and new skillset, I came back to school and started a digital food delivery platform at my campus with my friends. Easy Eats, provided the software and operations for local restaurants with language barriers or limited technical expertise to deliver food to college campuses across New England.

Our native app created an intuitive digital experience for these restaurants and connected hungry college students with the food they loved. On the operational side, we hired college students interested in delivering food to make a little money during the week, so they had cash to blow on the weekends.

The experience allowed me to put on many hats; determining product growth, marketing, team recruitment, and so much more! The ability to constantly be challenged in different ways every single day was what excited me the most. I remember eventually speaking with a mentor at the time to describe my day-to-day and them mentioning “it sounds like you’re a Product Manager”. From there, I knew that’s what I wanted to be.

2. What is your typical day like?

To be quite honest, there really isn’t a typical day as a PM, and that is what I love about it.

Each day is full of completely different tasks and roles. A lot of my days are filled with project ideation and defining product requirements for my designer and engineering teams. Other days, I may be communicating my roadmap updates with sales and marketing teams so they can weave our features into their campaigns. Weekly, I am communicating with leadership so they are aware of the work I’m involved in, as well as, talking to other teams to negotiate cross product dependencies and risks. Most importantly, I am constantly talking to customers to ensure I am building a customer-centric product that meets user needs.

For a more visual representation of my day, check out this video of my Day in the Life as a Product Manager! (200K+ views)

3. What are your favorite parts about being an APM?

My favorite parts about being a product manager are the autonomy and ownership of my work, the inquisitive environment, and the relationships I develop with the product community.

💪 Autonomy and Ownership

As a PM, you are no one’s boss or even official manager, but you do still have an extensive team that looks to you for projects, requirements, and guidance as it pertains to fulfilling company goals. Atlassian exemplifies this through their first product pillar: leads and inspires. As a very product driven organization, Atlassian PMs can guide a team to wins without playing directly on the field. As a PM, you are very similar to a coach, and I’ve loved how much ownership I get over creating and innovating on our team plays. It can take time, data, and sparring for them to believe in your vision. However, with the right motivation and earned trust, your plays can lead a team to a championship!

🎓 Inquisitive Environment

As a PM, no one expects you to know all the answers or know every single detail about the company. They expect you to ask a lot of questions. In fact, it’s encouraged! Most product communities promote a culture of inquisitive minds where people aren’t afraid to ask the “wrong” questions because they know it gets them one step closer to asking the right ones. We are not only engaged in many classes, trainings, and workshops, but we also are challenged by leadership to think outside the status quo. Being an early PM is about being a sponge and learning as much information as possible, so that you are best equipped when it comes time to perform.

👯 The Relationships

The best part about being a PM is you don’t have to do it alone! As you are navigating this new professional space, new responsibility, and truly discovering your product sense, you have a product community inside and outside of your company willing to support you. Whether it’s asking to review product requirements or simply venting about a long day, over time, you can form bonds that are unbreakable. You experience training, dinners, and even social events together. I truly value being able to relate with others who are sharing the same experience as me.

4. What are recruiters looking for in applicants?

To start this off, I am in no way a recruiter and am speaking from applicant experience. When it comes to product, I’ve noticed that recruiters tend to look for go-getters with strong product sense, analytical ability, and clear communication skills. When looking to break into these roles, use these pillars below to validate your candidacy:

✊ Leadership

Are you present in any leadership positions? Have you started any organizations?

📊 Build and Produce Results

Are you data driven when it comes to making decisions? Can you quantify impact? Will you go above and beyond to produce tangible results?

🗣 Influence and Communication

Can you effectively and concisely communicate information? Can you properly curate your message for different audiences? Do you start with “why” before trying to explain “what” needs to be done?

🖥 A Lover of Tech

Are you up to date with all the tech buzz words and what’s hot in the market right now? Have you worked at any tech companies in the past? How are you proving your interest in tech outside of the classroom/workplace?

🏃 A “Do-er”

Have you started any companies or projects on your own? How have you taken initiative in the past? Will you do the most you can with the limited resources you are given? Show me!

Start with these questions when preparing for APM programs to think deeply about whether you fit with what recruiters are looking for!

5. How can you leverage a diverse, yet nontechnical background to break into product?

You can break into product without a technical background by leveraging your diverse experiences. The best way is to highlight how your experiences can be applied to the product role.

You want to showcase the impact you’ve made in these non technical spaces quantitatively. Can you measure your success? Can you quantify the impact you made on a project? Can you point out that you’ve used product management skills in nontechnical projects? Then, definitely include it in your application!

I was a physics major but I adopted agile principles by shipping via an iterative process in my computational physics research. I managed dependencies and optimized for low-cost high-impact initiatives during my summer internships. I displayed my leadership skills by being the captain of my college’s basketball team.

Regardless of technical involvement, these are just some of the skills that are crucial to product management, and playing into those strengths definitely made my applications stand out!

Why not you?

That brings us to the end of the article. I hope you’ve found this content helpful towards your journey into product. It’s not easy, but with the proper preparation, drive, and the nuggets above, I know you can do it!

Additional Resources

Here are a few books and newsletters I recommend for interview prepping and staying up to date with what’s happening in tech:

Decode & Conquer
Cracking the PM Interview
Stratechery
Andreessen Horowitz

For more info and advice, contact me on LinkedIn: David Akinyemi

Top 5 Questions I’m Asked as an Early Product Manager