From QA Engineer to Product Manager: Harnessing Transferrable Skills for Success
In 2022 I was working as a Quality Assurance (QA) Engineer for our Students Financials product, but before that I was able to get two Product Management “gig” opportunities. Workmates have an appetite to learn, grow, and build cross-functional connections. Gigs match Workmates to business needs based on their skills and interests. These gigs are temporary, part-time projects where Workmates can grow their connections and skills while contributing to Workday’s business. During both gigs, I worked directly with a development team to build new features for Workday Learning. I discovered my passion for product management and realized there was a chance for me to expand my skills. Thanks to gig opportunities, I found a new career within product management.
I’m now a Product Manager for the Workday Student team, working specifically on the Student Financials product.
What You‘ll Do as a Product Manager (PM)
As a PM, you’ll wear many hats. A typical day includes attending scrum ceremonies on a cross-functional product team, as they work on new features that are currently being built for the product area. As the PM, you’ll define the priorities and respond to any functional questions that may arise from the development teams.
This type of cross-functional team will include: Developers, Quality Assurance and Automation Engineers, Documentation Writers, and of course the management team. But you may also work closely with Agile Coaches, UX Designers, and Architects. As you can see, it can be a diverse group.
The PM is also responsible for maintaining and prioritizing the product backlog, conveying the product vision to the development team and being accountable for product deliveries so that we can maintain our 97 percent customer satisfaction rate.
The Relationship Between PMs and Developers
In a nutshell: the Product Manager is often the person who bridges the gap between the customer and the development team.
For the customer, it is really important that their needs are understood to identify any pain points, and advocate for resolutions. Not to mention, you’re often the person who will bring the product vision and strategic perspective to the development team.
Product Managers also need to ensure that decisions align with user needs and expectations during product discussions. In order to achieve this, PMs must provide a clear direction for the team to follow.
This can be done by following a few key steps:
- Prioritizing features in partnership with the working team
- Building the product roadmap
- Ensuring the delivery of the product is achievable with the resources that they’ve been allocated
PMs also work closely with QA Engineers to ensure that the product meets quality standards and fulfills the customers expectations so that both the team and customers are set up for success.
Right now, for example, I’m working on improving current areas within the Student Financials product. We have one approach within Student that’s called MEPA (“make existing product adoptable”), and our focus is to improve our current product area to ensure we are set up for ease of scale and longevity into the future.
While I’ve moved into this product management role, I still find many of my QA skills applicable to my current work.
QA Skills I applied to Product Management
Critical thinking — This is a huge part of quality assurance. Like being able to understand complex problems that customers are having so that you can correctly apply the use cases and build out extensive test plans. Problem solving is also a major part of QA, they may discover a functional error in the product and then use problem-solving abilities to determine whether this is a bug, or whether this is intended functionality given their deep knowledge of the product.
Collaboration — Product managers need to be effective communicators so that they can work together with cross-functional teams and collaborate with stakeholders. This is something that a well-developed QA team is also good at. In QA, you’re expected to be an advocate for the customer, which will often mean speaking out on their behalf in scrum meetings to ensure use cases are not forgotten.
Product Knowledge — As a QA engineer, you’re usually the person on a team that knows the product more than any other role on the team. This is a huge asset when transitioning to a PM role as having a good product foundation is important so that you can make informed decisions.
Three Skills You Need as a Product Manager
If I have to summarize it, for me the most important skills are:
- Communication: You will have to convey your product vision, goals and priorities to cross-functional teams, stakeholders and customers while continuously collaborating to drive the product feature delivery.
- Problem-Solving: Remember that you are a key decision maker within your given product. You have to be able to think critically in order to break down and analyze complex problems so that you can make informed decisions.
- Leadership: You’re expected to guide teams by setting a clear vision and motivating them to achieve product success.
While these are skills I’ve found critical to my work as a PM, I believe they are applicable to just about any role. And at Workday, these are skills you can grow thanks to the support and mentorship of the team.
A brighter work day is just around the corner ☀️. Explore career opportunities here. For more #WDAYLife content, follow us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
