To become the kind of technical product manager that hiring teams chase after, start with understanding how to build stellar resumes that go beyond buzzwords and showcase actual product impact.
The key to doing this right is knowing how to present your strengths confidently, match the potential employer’s expectations, apply an all-winning strategy from BeamJobs’ expertise, and craft a cover letter to help you land your next technical product manager role.
What you’ll learn:
- ↪ 3 proven technical product manager resume templates that got the job
- ↪ What top-performing technical product manager resumes get right—and the pitfalls that ruin many others
- ↪ A teardown of what to say, skip, or say to stand out to hiring managers
How to Write a Technical Product Manager Resume
You’re the technical point person, meaning you’re the bridge between business strategy and engineering. When applying for a new job, it’s key that your technical product manager resume proves you speak the language of business professionals and developers simultaneously.
Summary
Show your technical expertise and product leadership using a strong resume that proves you deliver innovation on demand.
The recipe for success? Highlighting your technical background, product strategy skills, and leadership capabilities in one document. Here’s what you want to mainly focus on:
- Career Summary
- Using Action Words
- Skills Section
- Work Experience
- Education & Certifications
Craft a resume summary that balances tech & product vision
A career or resume summary is best suited for professionals with at least a decade of experience. If you’re a manager who’s been juggling across the technical and business teams longer than you can count, then this section will do you justice.
It’s not rocket science either. All you need to do is start by stating your experience and at least one achievement that has become your career highlight. Using a summary generator can help you create one within minutes.
Example
Seasonal technical product manager with 14 years of experience in communicating projects between senior engineers and C-level executives. Known for helping Oracle’s software developers to release an in-demand feature 2 weeks ahead of the deadline, boosting the company’s market share by 3.9% within one quarter.
Grab attention with technical skills that match the job
When recruiters are deciding whether to give a technical product manager an interview (in the seconds they’re reviewing your resume), they’re trying to answer two questions:
- Does this person have to requisite technical skillset to communicate with software engineers and code?
- Does their past work experience convince me they’ll have a real impact?
Your skills section is where recruiters first jump. It’s the first test.
They’re just looking to check a box at this stage. Do you know a certain programming language or front-end framework for example?
To pass this part of the review, you should include skills that you have that are mentioned in the job description for the technical product manager role.
9 top technical product manager skills
- Funnel analysis
- Customer segmentation
- Experimentation
- Statistics
- Python (Django)
- SQL
- HTML/ CSS
- Google Tag Manager
- Product analytics
Showcase quantifiable proof of your impact from past roles
You’re a product manager so you know the deal. The way to indisputably show progress is by looking at the metrics. Think of a professional resume the same way.
Quantify the impact of your work. Ask a question of your work and answer with a number.
How much did improving the page speed improve conversion rate? What was the effect of a pricing change on customer LTV? How did your interventions improve customer churn?
Here are a few samples:
- Implemented an automatic caching system that improved page speed by 11 %, resulting in an incremental $375K in annual revenue.
- Created a model to identify customers at high risk of churn based on product interactions and implemented interventions to reduce churn by 7%
- A/B tested user flows for a new B2C product and incrementally improved the conversion rate by 28%
- Conducted customer surveys with 100 biggest companies and added new products to the road-map with an estimated revenue lift of $2M
- Segmented users by interactions and identified the top 10% most active customers cost 87% of bandwidth so prices were raised on that segment with no increase in churn
Lead with strong action words
The last thing you want to do is write a resume with a great summary and wash it down the drain with lackluster bullet points. Before you begin each point, use a strong verb that instantly gives employers an idea of your contribution.
Some action words that are relevant to technical product management include:
- Led
- Built
- Defined
- Managed
- Engineered
- Incorporated
- Oversaw
- Communicated
- Released
- Directed
- Architected
- Executed
Prove your technical and business strengths with education
Ideally, you want to mention a degree in computer science and management together, but we know that doesn’t apply to everyone. What you can do instead is also list other ways of learning, such as training programs or diplomas.
For instance, let’s assume you’ve got a bachelor’s in computer science, but also want to prove your expertise in business management. Here’s how you can frame it:
Example
Bachelor of Science
Computer Science
Rutgers University
2006–2010
New Brunswick, NJ
Diploma in Small Business Management
Ashworth College
2011–2012
Peachtree Corners, GA
This is just one example of how you can format this section. Another way of proving your expertise in both fields is having a bachelor’s in one industry and adding extra courses.
In this case, let’s say you’ve got a degree in management studies. After writing it down, include certificates in technical programs, like:
- AWS Certified Solutions Architect (Amazon Web Services)
- Advanced Blockchain Development and Solidity Projects (Packt)
- Azure ML: Deploying, Managing, and Experimenting with Models (Whizlabs)
Make sure you include a certificate that best aligns with what the company is looking for using the job description. If they need someone who can handle product management and data science, having an analytical or business intelligence certificate will be more beneficial.
Top 5 tips for your technical product manager resume
- Your skills will pay the bills (or at least please the bill collector)
- When it comes to your skills, don’t go for the “overwhelm them with force” approach. That is, keep it to five to seven skills tops. Too many skills listed are a red flag. Focus on technical skills you’d be comfortable being interviewed on.
- Talk about your technical background
- As a technical product manager, you need to be, well technical. What is your programming experience? Were you a developer? Did you closely interact with developers? Make the extent of your technical experience clear.
- Customize each application
- Not the best news, I know. But it’s not that bad. Just look for technical skills mentioned in the job description that you have and add them to your resume. Five minutes tops.
- Choose relevant projects
- Do us a favor and re-read the job description of the job you’re looking at one more time. As you read it, do any projects you worked on come to mind? If they do, add them to your resume.
- Let your work experience do the talking
- When you’re at the point in your career where you’re looking for technical product manager roles, you likely have some experience. This should be the focus of your resume at the expense of the size of your other sections. Your education should not take up half a page.
Key takeaways
- Package your strengths and qualifications in a compelling professional summary
- Support your skills with measurable outcomes in every bullet point where possible
- Underscore your impact with the use of niche-specific active words
- Include your education for the extra professional touch
- Use a clean, modern layout that instantly impresses ATS and recruiters
Technical Product Manager Resume FAQs
Typically, a technical product manager is a product leader who has both technical and business management knowledge. For example, imagine a TPM for a cloud storage company. They will be involved in defining product requirements for an API integration while working with developers to ensure scalability and testing of features.
Technical product managers require a wide range of skills, from product strategy and business intelligence to computing. For this role in particular, it’s best if you divide your skills into two groups, one for technical skills and the other for business skills.
A technical product manager mainly works across various teams to develop, market, and deliver technology-driven products. From defining a product’s vision to executives to translating all requirements to the engineers and designers, they are the biggest bridge of communication that makes sure every feature is released as planned.
