Become a Product Manager: A Complete Guide for 2025

Why Become a Product Manager?

Product management is a dynamic and growing field, crucial…

December 29, 2024
Become a Product Manager: A Complete Guide for 2025

Why Become a Product Manager?

Product management is a dynamic and growing field, crucial in guiding the development and success of a company product, from physical products like surgical implants to software programs like digital applications, and beyond. According to Zippia, the demand for product managers is expected to grow 10% from 2018-2028.

Product managers are needed in virtually any industry. If you’re unsure where you’d like to direct your efforts as a beginner in the field, consider your location. In the state of Arizona, there’s a high demand for product managers in the construction and manufacturing industries. Additionally, as you explore different sectors and industries based on your area, you can also start researching what a product manager salary looks like. You can earn a decent living in Arizona as a product manager, especially in these specific fields. In Phoenix, the average product management salary hovers around $145,000, according to ZipRecruiter. That’s a high salary for an in-demand career. 

Now that you’re aware of how in-demand product management is, you may be interested in knowing what qualities, responsibilities, and skills are at the foundation of product management. Once you’ve understood what product management is, we’ll discuss how to become a product manager, through training opportunities, and more.

What is Product Management?

If you love understanding customers, what their needs are, and why they behave in certain ways, you may already have natural product manager skills. You’re already on your way to finding success in a product manager role. Product management is the driving force behind a product launch. Assessing product/market fit and aligning solutions with market demands, product managers support managing a product or service from ideation to development, and beyond. Product managers are responsible for the entire development lifecycle of a product. 

Product managers are product champions—efficiently leading product positioning by coordinating with product designers and engineers, as well as product marketing and sales teams to support the development and release of a product. Although the day-to-day responsibilities of a product manager differ based on business and industry, there are a few comprehensive responsibilities you can expect to have in a product manager role. The Product Manager outlines these core competencies: 

  • Research: Product managers need to conduct and analyze market research along with user research to gain a better understanding of the end-user—or customer—and what their needs/demands are. 
  • Define Product Roadmap: Project managers define an organization’s product roadmap, documenting the workflow for when and how the product and product features will be released. This is an essential tool for project planning, and ultimately, project success.
  • Perform Tests: After product development is complete, product managers need to see how these perform with customers. This is done through iterative “beta” testing and is measured by product managers.
  • Analyze and Present Results: After the launch of a new product or feature, product managers are responsible for delivering key metrics and results to leadership. Leveraging several analytics tools and reports helps ensure the product is meeting expectations set during the research phase.

Are Product Managers in Demand?

The Product Manager notes, “Glassdoor puts a product manager position as the 4th best job in the United States for 2023.” The job portal currently has over 9,100 product manager and senior product manager listings across the country.

The product manager job market suggests that there’s a growing demand for product managers across industries, including IT, healthcare, construction, SaaS, and entertainment. As discussed before, Arizona alone is a hub for construction and manufacturing, according to Zippia. In addition, Phoenix is ranked among the top most common cities for product managers in the U.S., with an average annual product manager salary of $96,742.

How to Become a Product Manager: A Step-by-Step Guide

Step 1: Learn the Fundamentals of Product Management

Step 2: Enroll in a Product Management Training Course

Now that you’ve honed the basics of product management, you’re ready to dive into a full product management course. As an aspiring product manager, you’ll want to explore different product manager certification courses that offer flexible learning, mentorship, and a certificate so you can showcase it on your resume and LinkedIn profile. 

Product manager certifications are imperative to future success. You’ll use industry-standard credentials to not only acquire jobs in the field, but also negotiate a higher product manager salary as well as show off key product manager skills to future employers.  

In just 10 weeks, the University of Arizona Continuing and Professional Education Product Management Certificate Course, in collaboration with Ziplines Education, will educate you on key skills and tools to become a product manager. Guided by industry leaders with hands-on learning projects, this course will help jumpstart your career in product management. 

Here are some product management certification schools to consider as you start your journey:

  • The Product School: They feature live, online learning experiences from Silicon Valley instructors—part-time and full-time options available.
  • Pragmatic Institute: They offer a three-part Product Management Certification course that you can complete in as little as one week.
  • Project Management Institute (PMI): For those of you coming from a project management background, PMI offers a Disciplined Agile® Scrum Master (DASM) Certification. You’ll learn how to identify and prioritize potential products and services to support your organization’s strategy.

Step 3: Build Practical Experience in Product Management

Taking a product management course will help you build practical experience, but you’ll also want to seek out internships, personal projects, or cross-functional collaborations in your current role. Ask your manager to connect you with the product team or seek out successful product managers at your organization to shadow. Request to take notes during product design meetings or ask to help support in any way you can. Plus, who knows; gaining hands-on experience in product development within your current organization may help you land an entry-level role there.

Step 4: Understand Key Product Management Tools

Familiarize yourself with product management tools and software to gain a better understanding of the product management life cycle.

  • Jira: Product managers use this popular project management tool for task management and sprint planning. Jira helps break down projects into manageable tasks providing real-time visual status updates for all team members.
  • Miro: Product managers may use Miro as a digital collaboration software, however, they may also use this tool to create customer personas, jobs-to-be-done, and user stories to refine customer opportunities.
  • Asana: Product managers use this software program to build product roadmaps. This is an especially helpful tool for resource allocation across all departments.
  • Figma & UserTesting: Traditionally used in UI/UX design, Figma is a fantastic tool for product managers to utilize during the product design phase. Product managers can take the prototype from Figma and perform user and A/B testing in UserTesting software.

The Product Management Certificate Course at Arizona, in collaboration with Ziplines Education, will educate you through hands-on learning via product management software tools. Practice with Jira, Miro, Amplitude, Figma, and more, to complete projects. At the end of 10 weeks, you’ll have earned certifications in Productboard and Amplitude—with the option to complete the Jira Software Essentials Certification.

Step 5: Build a Product Management Portfolio

As you seek out educational options, personal projects, and internships, you’ll need something to showcase all of your hard work—highlighting the skills and competencies you’re exercising. This is where a product management portfolio comes into play. Your portfolio should not only demonstrate your competencies, like decision-making, but also your technical product management skills, like how you facilitate product strategy, product vision, and more.

We recommend treating the process of building a product management portfolio just as you would a product launch. What are your desired outcomes? Main deliverables? Key metrics you’d like to highlight? Target completion date? CareerFoundry recommends, “Try to include a broad range of elements, in the order of when you worked on them. If possible, make sure to demonstrate your range of experience.” 

Here are a few tips from Product School on what to include in your product manager portfolio:

  • Start with an MVP, consider the user journey, and establish success criteria.
  • Include data and highlight key metrics.
  • Include images and/or videos.
  • Tell a story: Your choice of products should reflect a narrative, whether it be expert knowledge on a single topic or a particular professional trajectory.
  • Don’t be afraid to get creative!

Step 6: Network with Product Leaders and Teams

There are numerous ways in which product managers can network with one another—sharing success stories and learning from other product leaders. According to ProductPlan, there are 11 communities that product managers can join, whether you’re an aspiring product manager or want to elevate your already established skillset.

These communities individually offer a unique set of benefits, from webinars, events, and virtual Q&A sessions to career support and jobs boards—all hosted by leading industry professionals and product leaders. In a world with continuous innovation and transition, it’s always a good idea to keep a network of professionals in your ring to bounce ideas off of, learn from, and stay inspired by.

Step 7: Apply for Entry-Level Product Management Jobs

So, you’ve completed training and become certified in product management; you’ve created a dazzling portfolio, demonstrating your formal education and practical experience, and connected with your product manager network to hone your interviewing skills. You’re ready to apply for an entry-level product manager job! So, what job titles should you be searching for and what skills should you be highlighting in your interviews? Let’s take a look at the most common entry-level product manager roles, their responsibilities, and beginning product manager salaries :

Associate Product Manager (APM): This is an entry-level position that works under a product manager or senior product manager. APMs support the product development process by conducting user research, building user stories, creating wireframes, and testing prototypes.

Product Analyst: As an entry-level product manager, product analysts conduct research, collect data, and analyze user feedback to inform product strategy and decision-making.

Junior Product Manager: Junior product managers collaborate with the product team to define product goals, set objectives, build a strategic product roadmap, and collect customer feedback from customers.

Step 8: Keep Striving—Your Product Management Career Path

After the two-year mark working in an entry-level product manager role, you may start thinking about advanced roles you can pursue. Moving up the ranks to more senior product manager roles, you’ll need to be prepared for more responsibility. We recommend, as you gain more skills and experience, hone a niche specialty—becoming the “go-to” person in a specific industry. Your professional product manager career path could look as follows:

  • 2-5 Years: Progress to a product manager role. Develop a technical specialty (e.g., business analysis, product marketing, etc.) or industry knowledge in a specific field. This will strengthen your skills, preparing you to be a successful product manager.
  • 5-8 Years: Advance to a senior product manager. Here, your focus will shift to larger projects, leading cross-functional teams, and taking on mentorship roles for junior product managers.
  • 8-10+ Years: Move into a principal product manager role or a more executive role like director of product management. At this stage, your responsibilities are largely strategic, focusing on department-wide goals, long-term business strategies, and cross-departmental collaboration.

Key Takeaways: Your Path to Becoming a Product Manager

There you have it, a step-by-step guide with practical advice on how to become a product manager. Start with familiarizing yourself with the fundamentals of product management like product development, customer needs, and product lifecycle. Next, you’ll want to explore different product management courses—making sure whatever you choose has expert instructors, a flexible schedule, and hands-on learning experience to build a product manager portfolio. Once you’ve completed training, joined an online network, and snagged an entry-level product manager role, you’ll be well on your way to becoming a successful product manager.

Start your product manager journey with us today and gain real-world experience through hands-on projects. Master sprint planning in Jira, create product roadmaps in Asana, design prototypes in Figma, and more. Our 10-week Product Management Certificate Course at Arizona, in collaboration with Ziplines Education, will give you the career support you need to succeed. Jumpstart your career as an aspiring product manager today. 

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