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Chapters

This textbook is organized into 14 chapters covering 200 concepts for transitioning from product manager to technical product manager.

Chapter Overview

  1. Product Management Foundations - Establishes core PM vocabulary and frameworks including product lifecycle, strategy, stakeholders, metrics, and user needs.
  2. Software Development Essentials - Introduces how software is built, from source code and programming languages through version control and code review workflows.
  3. Technical Documentation and Requirements - Covers reading and writing technical docs, engineering specs, requirements, bugs, and the jargon PMs need to communicate.
  4. System Architecture Fundamentals - Explores system design patterns, distributed systems, reliability, scalability, and performance concepts.
  5. Cloud Computing, Scaling, and Infrastructure - Covers cloud service models, serverless computing, containerization, and scaling strategies.
  6. APIs and Integrations - Deep dive into API fundamentals including REST, GraphQL, authentication, data serialization, and testing tools.
  7. Databases and SQL - Covers relational databases, SQL querying, data tables, keys, schema design, and NoSQL databases.
  8. Advanced Data Management - Explores data warehouses, transactions, ACID properties, performance optimization, and data migration.
  9. Quality Assurance and Technical Debt - Addresses code quality, technical debt, testing levels, automated testing, and system migration.
  10. SDLC and Agile Methodologies - Covers software development lifecycle, Scrum ceremonies, backlogs, CI/CD, release management, and MVP.
  11. Analytics and Data-Driven Decisions - Covers product analytics, user behavior tracking, funnel and cohort analysis, dashboards, and data governance.
  12. Advanced Analytics and Experimentation - Explores A/B testing, experiment design, data pipelines, predictive analytics, and customer segmentation.
  13. AI Tools and Strategy for Technical PMs - Introduces generative AI, LLMs, prompt engineering, AI tools for PMs, and AI strategy and governance.
  14. Career Transition and Technical Leadership - Covers the technical PM job market, interview prep, technical communication, decision frameworks, and roadmapping.

How to Use This Textbook

Chapters are organized to respect concept dependencies - each chapter builds on knowledge from previous chapters. Start with Chapter 1 and progress sequentially for the best learning experience. Product managers with stronger technical backgrounds may skim early chapters and focus on areas where they want to deepen their skills.

Note: Each chapter includes a list of concepts covered. Make sure to complete prerequisites before moving to advanced chapters.