There are 400,000 job openings in product management

Don't know what a product manager does? Read on.

August 25, 2022

It’s considered one of the fastest-growing areas of business with more than 400,000 job openings across the country. And you can learn the skills you need for the job in as little as 25 weeks.

The job is product manager.

What Does a Product Manager Do?

Product managers figure out the bigger business objectives for a product — who it serves and how, and what success looks like — and they head up the team that puts all the ideas into place. They are also tasked with keeping brands and products relevant and able to adapt to change.

Research, process mapping, product design, and quality assurance are all part of their responsibilities. These roles can be found in tech, finance, construction, health care industries, and more for companies like Amazon, KPMG, Flatiron Health, Gap and Vevo.

The average entry-level salary is $88,600.

A Virtual Boot Camp for Product Design

With close to 10,000 job postings located in Baton Rouge, Louisiana alone, a new program offered through Louisiana State University (LSU) aims to fill that need.

Developed in partnership with national tech education provider Fullstack Academy, the LSU Product Management Boot Camp is a 25-week virtual program created by professionals with backgrounds in product management, civil engineering, entrepreneurship, innovation, computer science, education technology, and a product lead at Amazon.

“We are in the midst of product management’s ‘Golden Age,’” says Bryan Kind, vice president of academics and product for Fullstack Academy.

“Product management is a growing field, which pays very well and has a career path that creates a lot of room for individuals to grow and advance. It’s a non-technical field, and many industries are recognizing the benefits of having a person or department focused on bringing new products from vision to life,” he explains.

“There are a number of traits and skills that can be leveraged into a successful product management career, including curiosity, problem solving, statistical analysis, process building, empathy, communication, and critical thinking,” Kind says.

The LSU Product Management Boot Camp offers a free self-paced Intro to Product Management: Skills to Career Pathway course to see which of a student’s existing strengths translate into a career as a product manager.

To qualify for the boot camp, university enrollment is not required. The product management program caters to early career professionals, up-skillers, or those looking to pursue product management as a new career path.

The curriculum focuses on job preparedness and practicing product management skills in real-life, authentic scenarios, versus a heavy focus on reading, writing and dissecting case studies. The program is separate from LSU’s undergraduate degree programs, but upon completion, graduates receive a digital certificate from LSU and Fullstack Academy.

LSU and Fullstack Academy aren’t sharing their enrollment numbers yet; they anticipate an average cohort of 15 students per one instructor. The tuition is $12,495, but a $1,500 Founder’s Scholarship is available for all students who enroll in the inaugural product management cohort in October 2022. Additional scholarships are also available for LSU current students and alumni, military veterans, and other communities.

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Dana Beth Ardi

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Dana Beth Ardi, PhD, Executive Committee, is a thought leader and expert in the fields of executive search, talent management, organizational design, assessment, leadership and coaching. As an innovator in the human capital movement, Ardi creates enhanced value in companies by matching the most sought after talent with the best opportunities. Ardi coaches boards and investors on the art and science of building high caliber management teams. She provides them with the necessary skills to seek out and attract top-level management, to design the ideal organizational architectures and to deploy people against strategy. Ardi unearths the way a business works and the most effective way for people to work in them.

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Ardi is an expert on the multi-generational workforce. She understands the four intersecting generations of workers coming together in contemporary companies, each with their own mindsets, leadership and communications styles, values and motivations. Ardi is sought after to assist companies manage and thrive by bringing the generations together. Her book, Fall of the Alphas: How Beta Leaders Win Through Connection, Collaboration and Influence, will be published by St. Martin’s Press. The book reflects Ardi’s deep expertise in understanding organizations and our changing society. It focuses on building a winning culture, how companies must grow and evolve, and how talent influences and shapes communities of work. This is what she has coined “Corporate Anthropology.” It is a playbook on how modern companies must meet challenges – culturally, globally, digitally, across genders and generations.

Ardi is currently the Managing Director and Founder of Corporate Anthropology Advisors, LLC, a consulting company that provides human capital advisory and innovative solutions to companies building value through people. Corporate Anthropology works with organizations, their cultures, the way they grow and develop, and the people who are responsible for forming their communities of work.

Prior to her position at Corporate Anthropology Advisors, Ardi served as a Partner/Managing Director at the private equity firms CCMP Capital and JPMorgan Partners. She was a partner at Flatiron Partners, a venture capital firm working with early state companies where she pioneered the human capital role within an investment portfolio.

Ardi holds a BS from the State University of New York at Buffalo as well as a Masters degree and PhD from Boston College. She started her career as professor at the Graduate Center at Fordham University in New York.