What does a product manager do?
A product manager leads all the tasks to build a product and maintain its smooth running as per the user feedback.
It is a very responsible position as you will have to manage team and product development together in a synchronized manner.
Presently, more than 41,370 product managers are working across the United States. The demographics are not huge, as it is not easy to become a product manager in this highly competitive market.
You need industry-specific knowledge, product development & management skills, team management skills, and a solid portfolio to become a product manager in the United States.
If you want to know the fundamental responsibilities of a product manager role and how to become one, you are on the right platform as we will clear all your doubts by answering the following questions:
- What is a product manager?
- What does a product manager do?
- What are the fundamental product manager responsibilities?
- Is the product owner & product manager the same?
- How much does a product manager make?
What is a Product Manager?
A product manager is a professional who analyzes customer feedback to understand user requirements and addresses larger business objectives of the company product.
In addition, the product manager also leads the product development team to address customer requirements for the product.
Product management is a perfect blend of user experience, technology advancement, and business growth. Hence, a product manager has to deal with all these departments simultaneously to lead the product on a progressive path.
Product Manager Job Description
Product managers define strategies, roadmaps, and features for a product or different product lines of a company.
As a product manager, you will also have to deal with product forecasting, marketing, and profit & loss responsibilities.
We can define the overall product manager responsibilities into three parts:
- Market Analysis
- Defining Product Vision
- Delivering Valued Solutions
Note: You can use the product management job description to pick technical keywords for your resume. It will help you parse through the Applicant Tracking System (ATS) without any hurdles.
Product Manager Responsibilities
The product manager responsibilities are more than the above given brief introduction. Therefore, we are elaborating on the product manager duties below:
Setup Vision & Roadmap
Product managers define the product roadmap aligned with the company’s vision. After that, they strategize product development to implement the goals and vision.
Apart from this, product managers lead or play a vital role in the planning, developing, marketing, and managing a company’s products.
Analyze Customer Needs
A product manager also collects user feedback, analyzes them to know the customer requirements, and makes suitable changes or improvements to the product.
Product managers also take part in customer interviews to know the ground-level performance of the company's product and to improve it for maximum engagement.
Be an Advocate
You need to be a good product advocate to become a good IT product manager. You need to advocate customer requirements and expectations for the development team so that they can deliver the required user experience.
You must be a good decision-maker and keep the product improving according to the customer requirements, keeping the business goals in mind.
Team Collaboration
As a product manager, you will have to deal with different teams, including sales, marketing, engineering, and customer service.
Hence, you need to maintain smooth communication between all team members and ensure effective cross-functionality between these teams.
Test Programs
A Product manager will have to run the product's pilot and beta programs when its development phase comes to completion.
For this, we recommend an agile development methodology, in which you keep improving the product based on customer reviews.
Behave Like an Innovator
Product management is a responsible profile in which a professional has to build new business cases for products, improve already built products, and look for new business ideas.
A product manager should work as the CEO of a product, which continuously improves the product via research, customer review, etc.
Present Everything Elegantly
As a product manager, you need to keep track of everything with complete documentation and reporting, including market needs docs, business cases, product roadmap, product comparisons, case studies, competitor analysis, etc.
Documenting data for presentations is not an easy task as it consumes a lot of your time and effort to track everything. In addition, there will be uncountable documents to manage as a product manager. Hence, we advise you to keep everything arranged if you start your career as a product manager.
Product Manager Vs Product Owner
Though these terms are identical, there is a huge difference in product manager and product owner profile titles.
Product managers define the direction of a product in the market via vision-setting, research, prioritization, and alignment.
Whereas product owners work closely with the development and testing teams to execute the goals defined by the product manager.
You can check the detailed comparison between these profiles in the table mentioned below:
| Product Manager/Product Lead | Product Owner |
|---|---|
| Deals with stakeholders outside the company | Deals with stakeholders inside the company |
| Works to define the vision of a product | Leads development team to work on the shared vision |
| Defines success of the product | Defines the path to the success |
| Owns marketing, ROI, and vision | Owns fulfillment work and team backlog |
Product Manager Salary in the United States
The average product manager salary in the United States is $91,276. However, your salary can vary from other product managers salaries based on different factors, including:
- Company location
- Certifications
- Educational Qualifications
- Industry-Specific Knowledge
- Company Size
Highest Paying Product Manager Salary Cities in the United States
You can see the difference in product manager salaries in different United States cities below:
| City Name | Average Product Manager Salary |
|---|---|
| San Francisco, CA | $112,341 |
| New York, NY | $105,511 |
| Seattle, WA | $102,619 |
| Chicago, IL | $98,767 |
| Denver, CO | $97,351 |
| Atlanta, GA | $95,524 |
| Austin, TX | $94,899 |
| Houston, TX | $92,785 |
Key Takeaways
Product manager roles have numerous responsibilities in a company as they deal with every team related to the product, including sales, marketing, design, development, and customer support.
Here are some significant duties that you need to address while being a product manager in a company:
- Define vision and product roadmap for a clear understanding of what you want to achieve
- Help design and development teams build the desired pilot model of the product
- Run beta models and take customer reviews to transform the product as per user requirements
- Document everything from the first phase to analyze the product journey from zero to the current state
You can apply for an IT product manager job in the United States if you have the required skills, education, and industry-specific knowledge.
For additional help, you can use Hiration’s 360-Degree Career Building Platform powered by Artificial Intelligence technology.
It will help you prepare essential documents like a resume, cover letter, portfolio, etc. and it comes with 24/7 chat support for a seamless user experience. Moreover, you can also talk to our career-building experts for assistance at support@hiration.com.
