Technical PMs don’t need to code

There are many ways to become more technical as a Product Manager without learning how to code. Don’t get me wrong, having experience in shipping real code helps — it’s just not a requirement.

Here are 3 areas to improve technical proficiency without needing to learn how to code:

1) SQL & JSON

Getting a solid understanding of how to write SQL queries to extract data from a database will go a long way to giving you solid building blocks for technical data manipulation. On top of that, being able to understand a JSON payload and its formatting helps a lot too.

2) APIs and Auth

Getting your head around using Postman to connect to APIs and make calls and get responses. Part of this will help you get your head around basic auth, jwt tokens, keys etc. You don’t need to write code to read the API docs and connect via tools, but understanding this will take you a long way to better testing and understanding what developers need to deal with.

3) a modern Web stack

The last area that I’d encourage PMs to understand is how software is architected and how all the parts connect together. You won’t need to build this from scratch, but being able to understand an app architecture map and know what the various services are and what they do goes miles. The easiest way to get this is to sit with a developer on you team and have them explain your current software. There are also plenty of examples online of popular companies and how their stack is constructed.

For all 3 of these areas, you don’t need to learn how to program. Ironically, most PM courses don’t cover these and the best learning resources will be found via Google or Youtube.

Getting an understanding of these will get you miles ahead of most PMs. It will also build great street cred with developers while you ask a lot less stupid questions.