product management Tag Archives - General Assembly Blog

Navigating the Future: Why AI Skills Are Crucial in 2024

By

GA Astronaut floating in space

Let’s start with the obvious: AI technology is changing the world of work faster than anyone anticipated. From predictive analytics and automation to content generation, companies across every industry are rapidly integrating AI into their operations and seeking employees who can understand and leverage it effectively.

To put some numbers to it, 40% of organizations plan to increase their investments in artificial intelligence this year alone. This means that the potential for new job opportunities is huge — especially for early adopters in a market where the number of AI-proficient workers is slim.

From simple prompt writing to programming and machine learning, companies are urgently seeking AI-ready talent — and they’re willing to pay handsomely for it. While the hefty salaries for senior level AI positions tend to get the most attention, entry-level roles are still commanding some impressive numbers. A survey by Bizreport found that entry-level AI workers earn 128% more than in other occupations and that AI has widened the pay gap between tech jobs and other occupations by 36%.

Becoming proficient in AI skills in demand will help you capitalize on AI’s unprecedented growth opportunities. Find out which AI skills will be hot tickets for 2024 and beyond.

Continue reading →

Looking for a new career? Here are the 3 most promising tech jobs of 2023

By

The tech industry experienced mass layoffs and budget cuts in 2022 that have many tech workers who were once flying high worried about job security. Despite the gloomy news, however, the labor market for tech talent continues to be strong. While big tech firms are making headlines for drastic cuts, tech talent remains in high demand across other industries. 

For example, industries like finance, healthcare, government and automotive, all of which have yet to fully digitally transform, are hiring tech talent. The City of San Francisco—a verifiable tech hub that should, in theory, have unlimited access to tech talent—recently shared that its vacancy rate for IT workers is 21%. 

For workers willing to look beyond big tech, well paid opportunities continue to abound. At General Assembly, we help people break into a career in tech so they can increase their wages and land a job with great benefits and working conditions—ultimately, improving their quality of life. 

Despite today’s economic landscape, we still believe this is a path to prosperity and that opportunities abound for tech workers. In fact, not having a technical skill set could leave you less secure in your career going forward as everything goes digital. 

Continue reading →

The Top 5 Highest-Paying Careers in Tech (2022)

By

Careers in tech

It’s no secret. Tech talent is in high demand across industries, but finding people with the skill sets to fill these roles has been challenging, causing competition amongst businesses for talent in tech — in software engineering, UX design, data science, and digital marketing. As a result, jobs in data analytics, computer science, cloud computing, software engineering, digital marketing, and others pay well.

So what does “pay well” really mean? Using data from PayScale, Glassdoor.com, we’ve put together the numbers for the most common entry level tech jobs. (Note: salary levels quoted below are for the U.S. and can vary from country to country.)
Continue reading →

How to Build a Brilliant Visual Product Roadmap

By

roadmap

As Product Managers, building product roadmaps is a crucial part of our job. Yet most of us still use outdated tools for product roadmapping — Excel, PowerPoint, wikis, etc. — to try and keep multiple teams on track toward the same goals. It’s painful. The good news is that there’s a better way.

We understand that building a strategic product roadmap is not easy and that your business colleagues always want to know what’s coming next. It’s time to lead your product with conviction. Take a radical new approach to roadmapping because your company needs it and you deserve to build the future and enjoy what you do.

Continue reading →

Four Traits That Every Great Product Manager Shares

By

Product Manager Image

Product management is a role that consists of diverse responsibilities—and therefore requires diverse strengths. Methodical organization, creative thinking, and vision are just a few assets necessary to be an effective PM.

This variety of project manager traits is what attracts so many to the field, and makes their work endlessly interesting and challenging. But it takes a certain type of personality to thrive in this capacity. If you’re considering a foray into this field, take a look at some of the qualities that project managers share to see if they resonate with you.

“Organization, creative thinking & vision are a few assets necessary to be a Product Manager”
Click To Tweet

Continue reading →

5 Things Great Product Managers Do Every Day

By

Assessing-You-Products-Market-ViabilityMy favorite product managers are quietly powerful. Every day they take small steps that move their teams and business forward in a meaningful way. But they do it without a lot of hoopla, taking a confident yet unassuming approach.

After all, product managers have a lot on their plate every day. They are responsible for the strategy, roadmap, and feature definition for their product. It is a big responsibility that requires facilitating and collaborating with many different teams — both internal and external — without the formal authority to manage those teams. It requires a unique mix of humility and strength.

However, that quiet power does not mean leading product is easy. I realized early on that the daily life of a product manager is unpredictable, hectic, and sometimes very tough.

Continue reading →

Alumni Story: From Idea to Kickstarter Sensation

By

Student Chris Place

Many people have creative product ideas, but don’t know how to turn them into a reality. That rang true for Product Management grad Chris Place, who wanted to solve a common problem: People aspire to bring lunch to work, but often fail. He turned to GA’s Product Management course in Hong Kong to give him the tools to create and launch Prepd, a sleek lunchbox and companion app that aims to make meal prep fun.

“GA helped me understand marketing and creative storytelling,” Place said. “How can I tie together my product skills with a compelling marketing plan to bring my product to launch?” After the course, he leveraged his learnings to launch a wildly successful Kickstarter campaign that raised $1.4 million to make Prepd a reality. “We never expected this to get this big,” Place says.

Explore Our Product Management Course

10 Sentences A Product Manager Should Never Say

By

Your words can be a powerful ally or your worst enemy. It all depends on how you use them. So, how often do you think deeply about what you are going to say before you say it?

Product managers, in particular, cannot afford to be careless in their speech.

After all, good product management demands leadership and requires frequent conversations with other teams as well as different external stakeholders. These are not casual conversations; instead, they have some urgency and gravity. The success or failure of the product may depend on how well the product manager communicates with others.

But mastering the art of effective communication is not easy. If you are not careful, your words can undermine your effectiveness and authority.

That is why PMs must root out responses that convey a negative attitude and shut down communication, hindering their progress as a team.

Continue reading →

Don’t Frustrate Users With Gaps in Your Product Experience

By

There are countless steps where the product experience can break down.

There are countless steps where the product experience can break down.

There are countless steps where the product experience can break down. Have you ever been waiting at the corner for a ride-sharing pickup, and while the app swears the driver is right there, there is no car in sight? Or how about seamlessly ordering groceries in an app, then waiting well past the delivery window with no sign of your avocados? Ever called customer service by phone to learn they have no record of the two detailed chats you had with online agents about your issue? We’ve all been there.

As consumers who increasingly rely on technology to help us wrangle a vast range of goods and services, we’ve all experienced pain points when really good software doesn’t equate a really good experience. All too often, there’s a breakdown that occurs outside product screens, when a product or process hits the reality of the human experience or a user fails.

Take a peek at the diagram above, which charts the various user touch points that can occur with your brand in a product experience loop. Users interact with a product through many different channels and modes of communication, and bridging the gaps between them is essential to your product’s success. If you present users with a custom call to action in a social media ad, your customer service teams must be ready to respond. If you build an offer email that is redeemable at a brick-and-mortar retail location, the cashier will need tools to redeem it.

Continue reading →