Do product managers need coding skills?

Not all product managers have coding skills, but the ones that do are able gain more trust within the company. In this post, we break down some of the benefits of being a product manager that knows how to code.

• Communicate better with your engineers

  A lot of communication and alignment needs to happen from product spec all the way to down to the code implementation. When you have an idea of how code works, you can have deeper conversations with the engineers on your team. This allows you to have deeper relationships and trust with your team.

• Ship better products

  A product manager that can understand how web and mobile applications are built can better define product roadmaps. They can evaluate features and ideas based on business impact and ease of implementation.

• Sharpen your problem solving skills

  Start thinking about the products you build in a different way. How do you break product requirements into something a computer can understand? How do define and handle user interactions using code?

• Make better decisions

  You can use data to better understand your customers and make product and business decisions based off that data. Understanding how user tracking and logging is implemented in code can you understand what can easily be logged. If you deeply understand how your users are using your product you can make the smartest decisions around what your team should prioritize.

• Feel more confident

  You can communicate better now that you understand how digital products work on a deeper level. Your team will respect and trust you more because of that. This will help you to feel more confident when talking to people of different backgrounds.