Is Product Management a Good Career?

Product management is a hot career path because the field is expanding rapidly enough to create a significant talent gap. This means that there are more open product management positions than qualified Product Managers. This has led to consistent job openings, high demand, and high salaries.

Product Manager is ranked in the top 10 on Glassdoor’s Best Jobs in America list, which ranks jobs based on job opportunities, salary rate, and job satisfaction. According to their 2022 list, Product Managers report an extremely high rate of job satisfaction and around 20,000 open job positions in the U.S. According to the report, the average salary for a Product Manager in 2022 is $125,000 a year. 

Some of the factors that make product management a great career are lucrative salaries with benefits and bonuses, a talent gap creating high demand, flexible remote and hybrid-remote options, high job satisfaction, and creative, challenging work.

What is a Product Manager?

A Product Manager manages a specific product, including physical products, software programs, and other digital products. Product Managers are often called the “CEO of a product,” and manage its design, development, and appeal to customers. 

Product Managers need a strong combination of business skills, design skills, and tech skills. 

Because Product Managers oversee all the parts of a product, they are required to have three core skill sets: coding, user-driven design, and project management. Product Managers often work with development teams, marketing teams, design teams, stakeholders, and users to ensure the success of a product. 

Product Managers provide the “what” and “why” behind a business’s products, using research and user-driven design principles. 

Product Manager Salary and Job Outlook

Product management is a creative and rewarding career. It can also be lucrative: the average salary for a Product Manager is around $90,000. Product Managers at major tech companies, such as Meta or Google, earn around $175,000. However, Product Managers earn more at companies across industries. For example, Product Managers at Boeing earn around $170,000 annually. Walmart pays Product Managers around $150,000. 

Salary can also vary based on location. For example, Product Managers in New York City earn around $105,000 annually, while Product Managers in Dallas, TX, earn around $95,000. 

Product Management is growing much faster than the average. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, product management is expected to grow around 10 percent by 2024. Much of the growth in product management can be traced back to the rise of data-driven business decisions and the digital transformation in every industry. Technology is driving the need for Product Managers across industries. The finance industry is one of the fastest growing for Product Managers because financial institutions must develop digital tools and platforms to remain competitive in the market. In the entertainment industry, the rise of streaming services, such as Spotify and Hulu, is creating demand for Product Managers. 

What Makes Product Management a Good Career?

Lucrative Salaries

Product Managers make lucrative salaries. The average annual salary for a Product Manager is around $110,000. That’s more than double the average of $52,000 across all occupations. Becoming a Product Manager could double your income. 

Product Managers often receive bonuses and stock options that increase their yearly income. For example, the base salary for a Product Manager at Amazon is around $145,000. They also receive additional bonuses and stock options of around $75,000 a year. This makes their annual income closer to around $215,000. 

According to ProductPlan’s State of Product Management Annual Report, around 45 percent of Product Managers receive an annual bonus of more than $3,000, and 27 percent receive a significant raise every year.

You can expect an even higher-than-average salary if you live in a major city or tech hub. For example, Product Managers in NYC earn around 11 percent more than the national average. Working in certain industries can also increase your average salary. For example, finance and tech typically pay higher salaries, with Product Managers earning closer to $130,000 per year. 

Creative, Challenging, and Rewarding Work

Product management is a great career for someone with broad interests. A Product Manager’s day is never the same: you’ll be wearing many hats and using a diverse array of skills. Product management is varied work, which can keep it exciting since you won’t be doing the same thing over and over again. 

A lot of the activities Product Managers do at work are creative and rewarding. Product Managers come up with ideas and then share their ideas to make others feel excited about them. You’ll perform research and conduct interviews. You’ll take part in turning your ideas into designs and prototypes. And, then you’ll lead a team to build a product that will help others solve problems and make their lives better. 

As a Product Manager, you’ll be a relationship builder. If you like interacting with a diverse group of people to accomplish a shared goal, then product management could be a great career for you. 

High Job Satisfaction

Product Managers report much higher-than-average job satisfaction. Product management is ranked in the top 10 of Glassdoor’s Best Jobs in America list. It frequently ranks in the top 5 on the same list for the U.K. According to the list, working Product Managers rank their job satisfaction around 4.2 out of 5, which is significantly higher than most occupations. 

Product Managers report that product ownership leads to a sense of pride in their work because they are in control and interacting with a lot of people. Many Product Managers report that they are in a high level of control over their professional lives and days. They get to see a tangible product designed, created, and released that helps people solve problems. 

ProductPlan releases a State of Product Management Annual Report, which surveys thousands of professional Product Managers working in the industry. In 2022, their survey showed that 72 percent of Product Managers report that they are “extremely happy” in their jobs. 25 percent of Product Managers report that “flexible hours” and “high salaries” are the biggest perks of the jobs. 

High Demand for Skills and A Lot of Job Openings Groups

There is a global surge in the demand for people with product management skills. According to a LinkedIn survey, the number of job listings for Product Managers is increasing each year by around 30 percent. Other product-centric and product management jobs are also experiencing significant growth. Jobs for Product Designers and Product Owners have increased by around 86 percent each year. Job openings for Product Marketing Managers are increasing at around 30 percent. 

There are three primary factors driving this high demand for employees with product management skills: the increasing need for technological products across industries, the ongoing dominance of tech giants such as Amazon and Google, and the massive increase in ecommerce and online shopping. Some traditional retail stores, such as Walmart and Home Depot, are hiring a large number of Product Managers to manage ecommerce and online sales. 

Much of the demand for Product Managers is being driven by the need for digital products, services, apps, and platforms. Since every industry is adopting technology, Product Managers are needed in every industry. For example, Product Managers are needed in the financial sector because financial institutions must offer apps and digital account platforms. Similarly, the rise of streaming services, such as Netflix and Spotify, is creating demand for Product Managers in the entertainment industry. Product Managers are also highly employable in the healthcare industry, where they design and manage software platforms for appointment scheduling and medical records and healthcare apps for smart devices.

Career Paths Related to Product Manager

Product Management is a unique field that combines business, tech, and design. This is what separates it from other similar fields. For example, workers in IT combine business and tech without the design. IT workers use technology to solve business problems, while Product Managers ensure the success of a business’s specific product throughout its lifecycle. 

A great way to understand that Product Managers handle the “what” and “why” and Project Managers handle the “when” and “how.” Both are lucrative careers, although product management requires more technical training than project management. To manage a product, you’ll need to understand how it works, what its capabilities are, and its future possibilities. You might think of a Product Manager as a project manager who manages one product across projects. 

Software Engineering and UX Design are other career paths that are similar to product management. Knowledge in both of these is required to become a Product Manager, and many people work in one of these fields or project management before becoming a Product Manager. You might consider which of these is most aligned with your interests and skills and seek a position to gain experience to become a Product Manager. 

Learn the Skills to Become a Product Manager at Noble Desktop

Noble Desktop offers business, design, and coding classes live online and in-person classes at their state-of-the-art campus in Midtown Manhattan. Training at Noble Desktop offers aspiring Product Managers a huge head start since they specialize in the three core job skills: coding, user-driven design, and project management. 

All of Noble Desktop’s courses are taught by expert instructors, have guaranteed small class sizes, and feature a “free retake” option, meaning you can “retake” any course for free for up to one year to continue developing your skills. Noble Desktop uses a unique approach to career training: their expert instructors teach a “micro-lecture” and then immediately guide students through applying what they’ve learned through real-world, hands-on projects. This unique approach guarantees that you’ll learn the skills you need to launch a new career as a Product Manager. 

Hiring managers report that certificates and certifications move a resume to the top of the pile. Noble Desktop offers certificate programs in the three core skill sets: software engineering, user-driven design (UX), and project management. Earning certificates in these core skill sets can help you launch a new career as a Product Manager. 

Noble Desktop’s Software Engineering Certificate provides the technical experience needed by a Product Manager. This certificate program is divided into two parts: front end development (what you see) and back end development (how it works). In the first part, expert instructors guide students through coding in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. In the second part, expert instructors guide students through the fundamentals of coding in Python, Django, and querying with SQL. Professional Product Managers often recommend learning SQL as an additional skill. This certificate program will give you a head start. Graduates earn a New York State Licensed Certificate in Software Engineering, which is shareable on LinkedIn. 

Product Managers are advocates for the user: they know how to use research and data to make sure the product meets the user’s needs. To do this, you’ll need skills in user experience (UX) design. Noble Desktop’s UX & UI Design Certificate provides comprehensive training in user experience (UX) and user interface (UI) design. Students are guided through hands-on, real-world projects to learn user-driven design principles, user research, product prototype building, creating product case studies, and visual designs. This certificate program also trains students in using Figma and Sketch for design and prototyping. Graduates earn a New York State Licensed Certificate in UX & UI design, which is verifiable and shareable on Linkedin. 

Project management is a very hot career path on its own and one of the core skill sets of becoming a Product Manager. You might think of a Product Manager as handling the “what” and “why” and project management as handling the “how” and “when.” Noble Desktop’s Project Management Bootcamp project management courses are taught by PMP-certified Project Managers. Students are guided through real-world projects to develop skills in the Project Life Cycle, project management terminology, project selection and scheduling, resource management, risk management, and Agile Frameworks. 

If you’d like to read more about becoming a Product Manager, you might check out this Product Management Learn Hub. Combing these certificates on your resume is a fantastic way to launch a new career as a Product Manager. 

Key Takeaways

• Product management is a hot career path with rapidly increasing job opportunities.
• Some of the factors that make product management a great career are high salaries, high job satisfaction, high demand, and remote working opportunities.
• The three biggest factors driving the increase in demand for Product Managers are the need for digital products in every industry, the dominance of major tech companies such as Amazon and Google, and the increase in ecommerce and online sales.
• You can receive comprehensive training to become a Product Manager through an in-person or live online course with Noble Desktop.