That was really helpful; the key difference b/w software engineer & product management, will help someone what to pursue, I am also so much confused b/w these too.. I'm a PM now, but don't want to make it as my career.
Am an SDM/EM at a top company. EM vs PM is the more common comparison I see. They start at the same level in top tech companies. I don't see Jr Product Managers, only at the Senior levels where SWEs can split off into management. Still, very good video. I would say EM is all the pain of a PM, but you are managing a team of people, all with problems, and PMs are taking all the fun part of the job, deciding what gets built. I'm thinking of making the jump to TPM because of this. I hate owning the SWE team, knowing the code, know what needs to get done to remove limitations for the customer, then getting overruled by the PM or GM.
Lea, thank you for such a neat comparison!. From your summary I infer that software engineering is a better alternative. SE job is more defined, requires less soft skills, more flexible(time&place), easily transferable among industries and usually more lucrative. I have a similar career path, I used to work as an iOS engineer in the past but now am a product manager. A year has passed while I still don’t feel comfortable in this position for the reasons above and consider switching back to SE. May I know what was your motivation to switch from SE to PM if it seems to be less attractive job?
That was really great explanation. Amazing that you could summarize and line it up from personal experience. Been wondering the scope of work of product manager / owner outside there. I thought you've got UI/UX designer helping you to build the mockup and prototype.
Thanks Aria (: For a product manager or product owner, there's always SOME overlap with other roles. A PM will not be an expert in any of them, but they should know just enough to get the ball rolling... happy to do a video explaining more around the differences and similarities between PM and UX if that seems of interest.
That's indeed detailed explanation. Thank you! 1) As a CS student who wants to transition to pm, I am wondering why you made that decision? It would be interesting to hear from you! 2) How hard it was to find your first PM job? Any resume tips you could give for those folks with software background to fit into product position without actual product experience. Thank you again for concise and cool video!
Great question! And I'll give a bit of a long answer, so hold tight! 1) My reason for going into CS was pretty much so that I could make the fancy graphic designs I created on photoshop work :D, to make them interactive and actually useful and usable. I also loved solving puzzles, but really... for me, it was just a means to an end to express my ideas and thoughts in an interactive form. I was always more intrigued by people and user experiences and how to improve our lives... so, the reason for my decision to transition into PM is simply because I cared more about the WHAT and WHY we're building things rather than HOW (: 2) To be frank, I got LUCKY! I started off as an iOS engineer and then transitioned into PM at the same company. It took quite a while to do it and guts, but that's how I got my in. I also had done an internship as a Program Manager at Microsoft my last year of UNI. As a CS student, it's not uncommon to go for PM internships, so if you're still in college/university and considering going into PM I strongly recommend you go for a PM internship -- it's highly likely it will extend into a job offer and that's probably the easiest way to get into PM this early on (: In terms of resume, I would advise you to do 2 things: * Find PMs at your company, on LinkedIn, at companies you admire... and ask to talk to them. You have an advantage as a (recent) student in that everyone will want to help you and give you advice. So reach out and ask to talk to them about their role and what it's like because you're interested in pursuing it. * Make sure that you put numbers on your resume -- by how much did you improve X, Y, Z... when you worked on it. Increased crash-free rates, what impact the features you've developed had (increase in what metric that your company is following did your contributions result into). If you're still a student, make sure you highlight your experience doing cross-functional work, leading teams, doing your own projects and especially doing any type of user research or validation for your projects. Hope that helps! Let me know if you have any further questions (:
Thanks for a really insightfull video.I have 2 question it would be really helpful if u answer them! 1. Is there any difference in job opportunities in industry between PM and Dev? 2. Does having a successful person willing to mentor you in one of the two fields has a lot of weightage for deciding?
1 - depends on where you are in the world. I can only speak for US/UK and the opportunities are similar in terms of pay, but there are many more jobs for developers than PMs. 2 - having a mentor will always be beneficial, but it shouldn’t sway your decision because you can always find mentors in both areas. Choose the role you prefer (:
That's a fantastic video. Thank you for putting in the detailed analysis. I have a question for you: How do I know if a career in Product management will suit me? I am an extrovert, but I am not sure if I am creative or not!
Probably the best way would be to try it out in some way. If you’re currently working, you could ask a PM if you could shadow them or if they’d be down to mentor you. You could also try proposing some improvements/changes to what you’re working on through a PM lens, by talking to internal stakeholders, actual users, and using data to make decisions. Or you could take a look at an existing product and propose ways of improving them. That’s a question they often ask in PM interviews. I think everyone is creative ;)
I think the career path is what you want it to be. Instead of thinking of it as a “ladder” it’s better to think about it as a squiggle. Go with your gut.
You did a really amazing job with explaining the key differences between a PM and Software engineer. Also the video and presentation was really well done. Can you tell which software you used for presentation and recording?
Thank you (: So. I use Final Cut Pro for all the video editing, and in terms of the presentation I just used Keynote and screen recorded it with QuickTime. Keynote is amazing for doing quick and dirty animations :D but it's only available on a mac.
Thank you so much for the well-structured and simple video. Do you think it's possible to get a PM role right after graduating college (I'm getting a Software Engineering degree), or is getting a SE role then transitioning into PM a more optimal route? Thanks again :)
To be honest, I think the best way for you is to get an engineering role and than try to transition into product horizontally within the same company (: you’ll have more street cred as a software engineer, you’ll already know the product inside and out and they won’t have to spend a lot of money on recruiting you. So, second option for sure! If possible do the transition in the same company (:
@@adultings Yeah that makes more sense to me. Also, I thought how would the other software engineers trust you if you didn't do the work yourself before. Thanks again :) your content is amazing
Oh, great questions. I think education doesn't matter that much for a product manager, but for software engineers, you definitely want to have a solid foundation in computer science, basic algorithms, and basic data structures.
In terms of salary, they're pretty similar, especially in the US and UK (which is the ones I know) It probably varies more in different places, though and I would guess that the PMs earn less than the engineers, but I also have a hunch that the salaries will comes close to being the same eventually, everywhere.
This was so clear! I just moved into the Product department and I have been self-teaching myself front end web development (I also have an Information Systems degree from a state school.) As I was thinking of potential career growth, I was wondering which route I should take. (:
I'm applying for my first ever PM role and this video has really been helpful! Excellent use of beautiful and curated slide decks!! Thanks for sharing! Cool website as well BTW, love the Shylamp!!
Hi Lea, I'm a CS major about to graduate who got a followup interview asking me to be a PM rather than a Software Engineer. Do you find that you still get to use your CS skills, and if you were to want to switch back to Software, would it be significantly difficult? I didn't anticipate this option. I enjoy interacting with people, but have some pretty big concerns about stepping away from my degree.
Hey Zach! I totally feel you... and I've felt the same. I've gone iOS Product iOS Product, so I've made the switch back and forth. Happy to say it wasn't too difficult. It does take a bit of up-front investment to de-dust your programming skills and feel fluent again (mostly because tech moves at a lightning speed and things you knew once for a fact could now be obsolete). I think the big thing here is that the point is never to learn a specific tech stack by heart, but rather learn how to learn and think like a programmer. Then you can always get back (:
Now August 2023, 2 years after the video was made, the information are still relevant and I found it the most thorough explanation of SE vs PM. It helps clear my mind about switching careers to SE after 4 years of experience in PM. Great video!! :))
Yes I've made up my decision and am currently transitioning to SE from PM. The first reason is that I want to work at home and I believe SE role has more higher opportunities for working remotely. The second reason is that (in my experience) I think PM has wider scope of work compared to SE. I want to be able to work on more specific scope. I also like to build a real thing, not just orchestrating people to build things. The feelings just hit different, more fulfilling.
@@TheHaribols I heard so, but I don't think we have sophisticated data to support that. It also depends on so many factors. Regardless, working remotely is my top priority. Salary is my second priority. As long as my primary needs are covered and be able to save at least 30% of it, that's enough for me. I don't really care about career ladders.
Hi I have done Computer science engineering and then MBA in HR. I don’t have any work experience yet. The reason I did MBA is I wasn’t much interested in software engineering, now I have researched a bit about PM and thought of pursuing it. Can you please suggest me is it a good decision or not? Since im a fresher how can I go into PM ? Should I do any certifications or something else?
Hmm, interesting perspective. What's the difference between a software engineer vs a software developer in your opinion? I've generally seen the terms interchanged.
PM has "Unclear success metrics" is most ridiculous and false statement in this, not so bad, video. If you don't know your metrics, you are not a PM. By PM I mean real authentic product manager, not project manager, backlog administrator. PM knows every metric from OKRs, North Star and One Metric That Matters, down to all sorts of intermediate metrics in every step of the funnel and down to all the vanity metrics at the bottom, as well as knows every experiment, hypothesis, opportunity. The role of a PM also heavily depends on organization and it's size. Real product-led companies are rare and you do more stuff in a smaller startup and are more focused on one tiny part in a larger company. The way you described everything here is from technical point of view and makes it a good summary for a technical product manager, which makes sense due to your background, but it still far away from a Head of Product level, for example. Discovery wasn't mentioned at all. Only delivery, only features. PMs look beyond features into what people are trying to accomplish aka jobs-to-be-done. And yeah, what you do also depends on if it is Associate PM or CPO or anyone in between. Finally, there are all sorts of "PMs" in different organizations. Product Marketing Manager would be 2nd most common title. In data heavy products you will have Data PM, in creative stuff Design PM and so on. Overall, again it is a good summary of a technical PM in a smaller startup. I would say the main idea of a PM is VOC - voice of a customer. Real PMs don't sit in their own office all the time, they are in customer's office or wherever they are. You have to be a very strong connector, leader, influencer, dreamer, innovator, expert-generalist with solid extroverted, persuasive, sales, public speaking, presenting, consulting skills in order to be a good PM. P.S. You don't have any links on your channel's page. Keep doing good work. I am sure your channel will become much bigger. World needs more smart people who actually do hard work themselves to speak up, take action, and stop being invisible.
Hey Mev! Thanks for such a long response, I can imagine it took a while to write. I can obviously only speak from my own experience. I've never been a Head of Product and probably won't be for a while, so my comparison is based solely on my own experience with product and software engineering roles. I appreciate your perspective (: In terms of "unclear success metric", I was mostly referring to you, personally. You, yourself, don't really OWN nor can move any metric on your own. So your own personal metrics are very unclear... you can achieve product success by collaborating with others and not much else, and that type of success is hard to quantify.
A product manager who does not have fluency with the code and does not want to touch code is useless, playing with Jira and writing word docs and excel as a high school student is like trash-talking in a philosophical dinner.
What's your experience been as either a software engineer or product manager? Do you agree? Disagree? Have something to add? Let's discuss (:
I enjoy your delivery so much. spot on. cant comment on the content, im a ds :)
That was really helpful; the key difference b/w software engineer & product management, will help someone what to pursue, I am also so much confused b/w these too.. I'm a PM now, but don't want to make it as my career.
You’ve explained this so well
Concise, structured, well presented and ultra informative. Really nice job on the video! Just would add one more difference: the salaries.
Oooh interesting take! In my experience, the salaries are pretty similar, but I think it depends on geographical location. What's your take?
Really well explained
Priceless.
Am an SDM/EM at a top company. EM vs PM is the more common comparison I see. They start at the same level in top tech companies. I don't see Jr Product Managers, only at the Senior levels where SWEs can split off into management. Still, very good video. I would say EM is all the pain of a PM, but you are managing a team of people, all with problems, and PMs are taking all the fun part of the job, deciding what gets built. I'm thinking of making the jump to TPM because of this. I hate owning the SWE team, knowing the code, know what needs to get done to remove limitations for the customer, then getting overruled by the PM or GM.
This was fantastic!
Damn! What a researched presentation! Loved it, Lerned it. Could you please tell us what font is this 😻?
One of the best comparison out there
Thank you (:
Thanks for sharing your thoughts
Your Experience clarifies me a lot!!!!
Lea, thank you for such a neat comparison!. From your summary I infer that software engineering is a better alternative. SE job is more defined, requires less soft skills, more flexible(time&place), easily transferable among industries and usually more lucrative. I have a similar career path, I used to work as an iOS engineer in the past but now am a product manager. A year has passed while I still don’t feel comfortable in this position for the reasons above and consider switching back to SE. May I know what was your motivation to switch from SE to PM if it seems to be less attractive job?
Very clear and to the point. Thanks very much for sharing with us!
Glad you liked it (:
This was very inofrmative. Thank you :)
Thanks (:
That's a high quality video thanks a lot
Thanks (:
awesome informative video, very useful 👍
Congrats, really help me to clear that topic. Thanks
Awesome :D!
That was really great explanation. Amazing that you could summarize and line it up from personal experience. Been wondering the scope of work of product manager / owner outside there.
I thought you've got UI/UX designer helping you to build the mockup and prototype.
Thanks Aria (:
For a product manager or product owner, there's always SOME overlap with other roles. A PM will not be an expert in any of them, but they should know just enough to get the ball rolling... happy to do a video explaining more around the differences and similarities between PM and UX if that seems of interest.
Great Explanation,Thank You!! It helped me a lot
So glad to hear that!
That's indeed detailed explanation. Thank you!
1) As a CS student who wants to transition to pm, I am wondering why you made that decision? It would be interesting to hear from you!
2) How hard it was to find your first PM job? Any resume tips you could give for those folks with software background to fit into product position without actual product experience.
Thank you again for concise and cool video!
Great question!
And I'll give a bit of a long answer, so hold tight!
1) My reason for going into CS was pretty much so that I could make the fancy graphic designs I created on photoshop work :D, to make them interactive and actually useful and usable. I also loved solving puzzles, but really... for me, it was just a means to an end to express my ideas and thoughts in an interactive form. I was always more intrigued by people and user experiences and how to improve our lives... so, the reason for my decision to transition into PM is simply because I cared more about the WHAT and WHY we're building things rather than HOW (:
2) To be frank, I got LUCKY! I started off as an iOS engineer and then transitioned into PM at the same company. It took quite a while to do it and guts, but that's how I got my in. I also had done an internship as a Program Manager at Microsoft my last year of UNI. As a CS student, it's not uncommon to go for PM internships, so if you're still in college/university and considering going into PM I strongly recommend you go for a PM internship -- it's highly likely it will extend into a job offer and that's probably the easiest way to get into PM this early on (:
In terms of resume, I would advise you to do 2 things:
* Find PMs at your company, on LinkedIn, at companies you admire... and ask to talk to them. You have an advantage as a (recent) student in that everyone will want to help you and give you advice. So reach out and ask to talk to them about their role and what it's like because you're interested in pursuing it.
* Make sure that you put numbers on your resume -- by how much did you improve X, Y, Z... when you worked on it. Increased crash-free rates, what impact the features you've developed had (increase in what metric that your company is following did your contributions result into). If you're still a student, make sure you highlight your experience doing cross-functional work, leading teams, doing your own projects and especially doing any type of user research or validation for your projects.
Hope that helps! Let me know if you have any further questions (:
@@adultings wow thank you, I really appreciate it! ;)
@@adultings Thanks! Can I ask do you need a CS degree to go into Product Managing?
This video is so helpful. Thank you.
Thanks (:
Most thorough, nuanced video that I've come across on SE vs PM roles. Great use of simple tables and charts to follow as you speak. Wonderful job!
Thanks! Appreciate your feedback (: I definitely would have wanted something similar when I was deciding on my first role.
the video was very informative, thank you! it's a shame though that sound was so quiet, i didn't want to miss anything you said
Thanks. Apologies for the poor sound quality. The next ones will be better! (:
Very well comprehended! Kudos xD
Thanks (:
i just changed from engineering to project management and can fully agree. good video!
Thanks! How exciting! Good luck on your journey (:
Thats a great video!!!
Thanks (:
God bless you for this insightful video.
Very nicely explained..how easy or difficult it is to move from a Telecom testing professional to PM in same Indus try ?
Wow this is what i need rn. Thanks a lot!!!
Glad I could help (:
awesome video!
Thanks for a really insightfull video.I have 2 question it would be really helpful if u answer them!
1. Is there any difference in job opportunities in industry between PM and Dev?
2. Does having a successful person willing to mentor you in one of the two fields has a lot of weightage for deciding?
1 - depends on where you are in the world. I can only speak for US/UK and the opportunities are similar in terms of pay, but there are many more jobs for developers than PMs.
2 - having a mentor will always be beneficial, but it shouldn’t sway your decision because you can always find mentors in both areas. Choose the role you prefer (:
That's a fantastic video. Thank you for putting in the detailed analysis. I have a question for you:
How do I know if a career in Product management will suit me? I am an extrovert, but I am not sure if I am creative or not!
Probably the best way would be to try it out in some way.
If you’re currently working, you could ask a PM if you could shadow them or if they’d be down to mentor you.
You could also try proposing some improvements/changes to what you’re working on through a PM lens, by talking to internal stakeholders, actual users, and using data to make decisions.
Or you could take a look at an existing product and propose ways of improving them. That’s a question they often ask in PM interviews.
I think everyone is creative ;)
I just subscribed coz you are amazing. I like the presentation
Awh, thanks (:
This was a fantastic video. Love how clear the difference are. What’s the career path for a software engineer?
I think the career path is what you want it to be. Instead of thinking of it as a “ladder” it’s better to think about it as a squiggle. Go with your gut.
I loved your content
Thank you!
How long were you an SE before moving to PM?
Hi Lea, Can you share the PPT with me its so cool?
If I can find it, I’ll post it (:
You did a really amazing job with explaining the key differences between a PM and Software engineer. Also the video and presentation was really well done.
Can you tell which software you used for presentation and recording?
Thank you (:
So. I use Final Cut Pro for all the video editing, and in terms of the presentation I just used Keynote and screen recorded it with QuickTime. Keynote is amazing for doing quick and dirty animations :D but it's only available on a mac.
SE has a lot of clarity only if PM is going a good job 😢
🙏🏻
Thank you so much for the well-structured and simple video. Do you think it's possible to get a PM role right after graduating college (I'm getting a Software Engineering degree), or is getting a SE role then transitioning into PM a more optimal route? Thanks again :)
To be honest, I think the best way for you is to get an engineering role and than try to transition into product horizontally within the same company (: you’ll have more street cred as a software engineer, you’ll already know the product inside and out and they won’t have to spend a lot of money on recruiting you. So, second option for sure! If possible do the transition in the same company (:
@@adultings Yeah that makes more sense to me. Also, I thought how would the other software engineers trust you if you didn't do the work yourself before. Thanks again :) your content is amazing
What about education or salary?
Oh, great questions. I think education doesn't matter that much for a product manager, but for software engineers, you definitely want to have a solid foundation in computer science, basic algorithms, and basic data structures.
In terms of salary, they're pretty similar, especially in the US and UK (which is the ones I know) It probably varies more in different places, though and I would guess that the PMs earn less than the engineers, but I also have a hunch that the salaries will comes close to being the same eventually, everywhere.
@@adultings Thank you so much :)🙂 🌻
Your so pretty, according to my Kevin Samuels pretty list.
Men are cringe
Sound is way too low
This was so clear! I just moved into the Product department and I have been self-teaching myself front end web development (I also have an Information Systems degree from a state school.) As I was thinking of potential career growth, I was wondering which route I should take. (:
I’m really glad you enjoyed it thanks!
I'm applying for my first ever PM role and this video has really been helpful! Excellent use of beautiful and curated slide decks!! Thanks for sharing! Cool website as well BTW, love the Shylamp!!
Thanks Brian! 😊 glad to hear it was helpful and appreciate that you took the time to check out my website. I loved making that gizmo (:
omg, thanks a lot
it is very informative and eager me to become pm
That's awesome :D good luck!
This is such a great video, thanks for making it. You have a new subscriber ;)
Thank you 🎉👏🏻🥳
Great job, thanks 👍
Thanks (:
Just found this, really helps make a decision! Thanks :)
Awesome. Glad I could help (:
4:57 I got scared for a while 🤭
Hi Lea, I'm a CS major about to graduate who got a followup interview asking me to be a PM rather than a Software Engineer. Do you find that you still get to use your CS skills, and if you were to want to switch back to Software, would it be significantly difficult? I didn't anticipate this option. I enjoy interacting with people, but have some pretty big concerns about stepping away from my degree.
Hey Zach! I totally feel you... and I've felt the same. I've gone iOS Product iOS Product, so I've made the switch back and forth. Happy to say it wasn't too difficult. It does take a bit of up-front investment to de-dust your programming skills and feel fluent again (mostly because tech moves at a lightning speed and things you knew once for a fact could now be obsolete). I think the big thing here is that the point is never to learn a specific tech stack by heart, but rather learn how to learn and think like a programmer. Then you can always get back (:
Now August 2023, 2 years after the video was made, the information are still relevant and I found it the most thorough explanation of SE vs PM. It helps clear my mind about switching careers to SE after 4 years of experience in PM. Great video!! :))
so you switched to se , why?
Yes I've made up my decision and am currently transitioning to SE from PM. The first reason is that I want to work at home and I believe SE role has more higher opportunities for working remotely. The second reason is that (in my experience) I think PM has wider scope of work compared to SE. I want to be able to work on more specific scope. I also like to build a real thing, not just orchestrating people to build things. The feelings just hit different, more fulfilling.
@@SuryaAdiWiguna yeah but what about salary , pm's have higher than se right
@@TheHaribols I heard so, but I don't think we have sophisticated data to support that. It also depends on so many factors. Regardless, working remotely is my top priority. Salary is my second priority. As long as my primary needs are covered and be able to save at least 30% of it, that's enough for me. I don't really care about career ladders.
I should have watched your video earlier instead of reading many articles, thanks for making the video 💖
You’re welcome (:
Hi
I have done Computer science engineering and then MBA in HR.
I don’t have any work experience yet.
The reason I did MBA is I wasn’t much interested in software engineering, now I have researched a bit about PM and thought of pursuing it.
Can you please suggest me is it a good decision or not?
Since im a fresher how can I go into PM ?
Should I do any certifications or something else?
Hey, how are you doing? Did you get into PM role
Great content ! 😀
Thanks!
well done! really good insights! i'd say that you are describing a software developer, rather than software engineer though.
Hmm, interesting perspective. What's the difference between a software engineer vs a software developer in your opinion? I've generally seen the terms interchanged.
PM has "Unclear success metrics" is most ridiculous and false statement in this, not so bad, video. If you don't know your metrics, you are not a PM. By PM I mean real authentic product manager, not project manager, backlog administrator. PM knows every metric from OKRs, North Star and One Metric That Matters, down to all sorts of intermediate metrics in every step of the funnel and down to all the vanity metrics at the bottom, as well as knows every experiment, hypothesis, opportunity.
The role of a PM also heavily depends on organization and it's size. Real product-led companies are rare and you do more stuff in a smaller startup and are more focused on one tiny part in a larger company.
The way you described everything here is from technical point of view and makes it a good summary for a technical product manager, which makes sense due to your background, but it still far away from a Head of Product level, for example. Discovery wasn't mentioned at all. Only delivery, only features. PMs look beyond features into what people are trying to accomplish aka jobs-to-be-done. And yeah, what you do also depends on if it is Associate PM or CPO or anyone in between.
Finally, there are all sorts of "PMs" in different organizations. Product Marketing Manager would be 2nd most common title. In data heavy products you will have Data PM, in creative stuff Design PM and so on.
Overall, again it is a good summary of a technical PM in a smaller startup.
I would say the main idea of a PM is VOC - voice of a customer. Real PMs don't sit in their own office all the time, they are in customer's office or wherever they are. You have to be a very strong connector, leader, influencer, dreamer, innovator, expert-generalist with solid extroverted, persuasive, sales, public speaking, presenting, consulting skills in order to be a good PM.
P.S. You don't have any links on your channel's page.
Keep doing good work. I am sure your channel will become much bigger. World needs more smart people who actually do hard work themselves to speak up, take action, and stop being invisible.
Hey Mev! Thanks for such a long response, I can imagine it took a while to write. I can obviously only speak from my own experience. I've never been a Head of Product and probably won't be for a while, so my comparison is based solely on my own experience with product and software engineering roles. I appreciate your perspective (:
In terms of "unclear success metric", I was mostly referring to you, personally. You, yourself, don't really OWN nor can move any metric on your own. So your own personal metrics are very unclear... you can achieve product success by collaborating with others and not much else, and that type of success is hard to quantify.
A product manager who does not have fluency with the code and does not want to touch code is useless, playing with Jira and writing word docs and excel as a high school student is like trash-talking in a philosophical dinner.
That's a very strong stance and you're absolutely entitled to it (:
@@adultings wondering if there's any truth to this strong stance?