How to ramp up in Tech concepts as a non-techie preparing for PM Interviews / role

Product managers enable product development, which is basically the process of building tech. Hence it becomes vital to have a minimum amount of technical knowledge to be able to deliver good-quality features/products.

Talking about the type of company. Product managers at early-stage startups probably need a little more technical depth than those who work in larger corporates with the support of other roles that can bridge the gaps in technical understanding.

In any case, tech is essential to break into product management even as a non-techie, as you must know the What’s of it and to some extent the How's of it.

So without any further haste, let’s see how you can ramp up your technical concepts as a non-techie for Product interviews.

Hard Skills & Tools - Getting what it takes

In tech, there are some basics that you need to know, no matter what.

- Try out coding basics: I’m not asking you to code the Google search algorithms. Learn the basics of coding, and how systems work. Even if it’s not your cup of tea, you’ll learn a new perspective on problems. The importance here is not in learning a specific programming language but instead in knowing the fundamental concepts such as Arrays, Functions, etc.

- APIs: APIs open up a whole world of new products and business opportunities. It’s a good idea to get your head around APIs so that you can speak confidently with stakeholders and third-party software providers. Learn about requests, responses, REST, and other API basics. Having a good sense of APIs will give you a big fat edge in any SaaS product interview.

- Tools: Now that you know what APIs are, and how they work. Learn some tools that you might need as a PM. Tools that either help you communicate properly with the tech teams or the ones that help you know more about the product. This includes tools like Postman & GIT.

- Client vs Server:You may have heard engineers on your team refer to something happening on the client side or something happening on the server side.
The client and Server side is an essential concept is learning. Try learning what it means, what are server codes, what’s the backend, frontend, server, etc.

- Databases: Finally, it’s super useful to understand what role databases play in your product. You can have all the latest fancy javascript, CSS, and APIs in the world, but without a database, you’re going to struggle to build a business. Learn about various types of Databases, know the difference between them, and how they make an effect on your product. Learning SQL basics would also be a good thing to do.

After learning on the 5 topics above, you should be able to answer the following sample questions that are frequently asked in tech rounds for Product interviews.

• - How would you build TinyURL?
• - How would you design a relational schema for a calendar application?
• - How does Google Docs work?
• - How would you diagnose a connection issue with Instagram?

Hard skills done? Great!

The next step is to build tech sense.

Tech Sense - Knowing the limits and Opportunities

Tech sense basically means knowing the abilities and disabilities of tech.

As a product manager, you are the one who will be the bridge between various teams. Whether it’s sales, tech, or operations, you are the one who handles them and enables them with the product idea.

Having the right sense of technical capabilities of your product is indispensable due to two reasons

• - If you miss out on capabilities, you lose value on your product’s potential.
• - In the same way, if you oversell your product idea, and it can’t be built that way, you not only end up delaying sprints, wasting your team's time & resources, but also lose trust in the process.

A product manager must know what can be built, how it can be built, and what efforts can go into building it.

So that you can keep all your teams and their expectations on the same page.

You must be thinking, “Anmol, okay tech sense is needed, but how do I build it?”

So, here’s how 👇

Build your domain knowledge. Learn more about the products in your specific domain, and always try to go a bit deeper.
For example, if you are building something related to APIs. Ask yourself these questions

1. What are APIs

2. What is the functionality of APIs or how do they work?

3. How do the current APIs in my product work?

4. What does the current API does in my product?

5. What more can it not do?

6. Why it can’t do it?

You can go deeper and deeper!

• - Talk to devs: I mean they aren’t as bad as you think unless they ask for a Jira to change the button color. Developers know something better than you i.e. tech. So learn their slang, and learn from them how the system works. You’ll be much happier in the upcoming tech meets.

• - Be naturally curious about the tech you are building! Read Books, and articles, follow influencers related to tech on LinkedIn, and just be curious.

Remembering the Goal

While you learn about technical concepts, it’s always good to remember the main goal of doing so i.e.

- Knowing the limits & opportunities.

- Being able to comfortably communicate the technical aspects.

You don’t need to be able to write lines of code, no one expects that. All you need is to be educated enough to know the things involved so that you can communicate, optimize, strategize and build around it.

So make sure you get the basics, but also don’t beat yourself up for not knowing everything.

A few resources to assist you!

Videos

Everything about APIs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5y0WKmKenQ

What happens when you enter a URL into the browser? : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9sTT7R67ik  

Databases for PMs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEBgMBE8R70&t=34s

Articles

What are Databases: https://pmschool.io/post/what-are-databases

Ultimate PM Guide to APIs: https://pmschool.io/post/what-are-apis

Books

Decode & Conquer by Lewis C. Lin

Tech Simplified by Deepak Singh

Inspired by Marty Cagan

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I hope this was helpful! Feel free to reach out for any queries.

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