Technical Product Management Jobs

Salt’s Specialisms in Technical Product Management

• Head of Product
• Platform as a Product
• Product Owners
• Technical Product Managers

Latest salary trends in the Technical Product Management job sector

Product Manager – Junior

NZ$70,000 - NZ$80,000

Product Manager – Mid-Weight

NZ$80,000 - NZ$95,000

Product Manager – Senior

NZ$95,000 - NZ$115,000

Product Manager – Director Level

NZ$115,000+

Demand Vs Offer

The number of employers which hire Technical Product Managers are relatively limited compared to other technical industries, but it has been steadily growing over the last couple of years. Most of the jobs offered are permanent positions while only a small percentage being contract. The number of Technical Product Managers are also limited, which is why it can be difficult for recruiters to find appropriate employees in this field.

Locations

• Auckland
• Christchurch
• Wellington

Popular Industries

The majority of industries which employ Technical Product Managers are focused on technology, including information technology, telecommunications, engineering, and manufacturing. However, a large number of job opportunities are also offered by the sales and marketing, and financial services sector.

Recent Changes

One of the biggest changes in the industry is that the product development cycle becomes more transparent. This should help find solutions to possible misunderstandings at early stages and should convince customers to buy products earlier in the product development cycle. Furthermore, customers’ feedback can help you look at certain things from different angles, which can be extremely beneficial for the development process.

Future Prospects

Experts in Technical Product Management will always be in high demand as the skill sets needed for completing this role cannot easily be automated. What will change are the expectations on these experts. Lean methodologies and agile development will for example, become a must-have skill and product managers will have to deal with an increasing amount of data.

Employers' Requirements

One key quality that employers expect from Technical Product Managers is organisational skills. An ideal future employee can guarantee that the whole project runs smoothly and according to the plan. Since it is very common that multiple projects run concurrently, experts in this field are also required to have excellent multitasking skills. Moreover, leadership competency is a huge advantage as most projects require a larger team to be managed.

CV Requirements

To impress employers, it is crucial to put the most relevant competencies on your CV. Among these are the scheduling and the resource definition for the project implementation, the planning of the project life cycle and the strategy creation for risk mitigation. Furthermore, it is beneficial to mention your experience with the management of complex projects (from development and design to production) and with the planning of goals, project deliverables and milestones.

Interview Preparation

The interviews are usually adapted to the degree of technical knowledge which is required by the Technical Product Manager. More precisely, if an advanced engineering knowledge is required, some interview questions will be extremely technical and specific. If the organisational and planning skills are more important, the number of technical questions will be lowered. Some typical questions for the majority of product management interviews are:

• What aspects of product management do you find most interesting?
• How could you change an application that you are familiar with?
• Could you give me an example of a product/service which is very
well-designed?
• Which metrics would you use to track your products?
• How do you interact with your users?

Educational Requirements

In order to become a Technical Product Manager, you do not need to have a degree in computer science, but it can enormously increase your chances of employment. This is because according to many hiring managers, an engineering background helps a Technical Product Manager to understand the technical functionality of a product and what the engineers are talking about. Without this understanding, important details might get lost in translation.

Looking for Technical Product Management jobs? Check out our current opportunities on our job page.