If you’ve been in product management for a while, you’ve probably heard the phrase “we’re looking for someone technical.”
On paper, that sounds harmless. But in practice, it’s confusing especially for PMs without an engineering or computer science background. Does “technical enough” mean you should know how to code? Be able to design a database schema? Or is it just about asking the right questions in a technical meeting?
While combing through a lot of Reddit threads, Quora discussions and questions from Treford community events, we have seen product managers repeatedly ask variations of the same question:
- “how technical do product managers need to be?”
- “What does ‘technical’ actually mean to hiring managers?”
- “Which skills qualify me as a technical product manager?”
Who is a Technical Product Manager?
Here’s the first hard truth: there is no single, universal definition of a Technical Product Manager (TPM). Different companies interpret the role differently depending on their products, teams and culture:
- At a SaaS company, a TPM might be expected to own APIs, integrations, and platform scalability.
- At a data-driven company, a TPM may focus on analytics pipelines, SQL, and backend systems.
- In hardware or IoT, the role could involve firmware, connectivity, or device compatibility.
But across all these contexts, the core difference between a generalist PM and a technical product manager lies in focus and fluency.
1. Focus
- A generalist product manager spends more time on customer insights, go-to-market, and overall product vision.
- A technical product manager spends more time making sure features are technically feasible, scalable, and aligned with engineering realities.
2. Fluency
- A technical product manager doesn’t need to write production-level code, but they do need to understand how systems interact and communicate in the language of engineers.
- Example: Instead of just saying, “We need single sign-on,” a TPM should ask, “Should we integrate with SAML or OAuth? What trade-offs will that introduce?”
3. Outcomes
- Hiring managers look for technical product managers who reduce friction between product and engineering, de-risk technical decisions early and help teams ship faster with fewer misunderstandings.
In other words, a technical product manager is not “a PM who codes.” They’re a product manager who makes better decisions because they understand how the product is built. Being technical becomes increasingly crucial as you advance in your product management career, particularly in mid- and senior-level positions.
A glimpse into this article from ProductHQ offers some insights into what the role of a senior technical product manager looks like.
For more context, let’s analyse some job responsibilities as posted by some tech companies.
A Case Study of PayStack’s Technical Product Manager Job Responsibilities
One way to cut through the noise around “Do I need to be technical?” is to look directly at what real companies are hiring for. Take Paystack, one of Africa’s leading payment companies. In a recent product manager job description, they listed requirements like:
- “3+ years’ experience building and managing technical software products”
- “Computer science, software engineering, or data science experience”
- “Experience with large-scale platforms and consumer-facing products”
- “Ability to define, monitor, and analyze metrics”
- “Strong understanding of the consumer product market in Nigeria”
At first glance, this may look intimidating—like they only want ex-engineers. However, if you unpack it, here’s what we believe Paystack is actually signaling to its potential applicants.
| Requirement | What It Really Means | What You Can Show as a Transitioning PM |
| Experience with technical products / large-scale platforms | Exposure to complexity: scaling issues, backend constraints, performance trade-offs | Showcase projects where you worked on integrations, platform reliability, or infrastructure-heavy features |
| CS/engineering/data background | Comfort with structured technical thinking | If you don’t have a CS degree, demonstrate learning: SQL queries, API docs, system design workshops, or certifications |
| Defining/monitoring metrics | Be data-driven; don’t rely only on anecdotes | Highlight how you’ve set up dashboards, ran experiments, or made roadmap calls using numbers |
| Consumer-facing product knowledge in Nigeria | Payments, mobile UX, regulatory factors | Show you understand market realities: unreliable networks, user trust, KYC/regulatory hurdles |
Why This Matters
For someone coming from a non-technical PM role, Paystack’s description makes one thing clear: “technical enough” doesn’t mean coding full-time. It means you can hold your own in conversations about APIs, data pipelines, and scaling challenges, while still being grounded in customer problems and the local market.
This case study is important because it shows that African tech companies are not just copying Silicon Valley job ads; they’re crafting the definition of technical PMs around their own peculiar niche, industry and constraints: payments, mobile reliability, and consumer adoption. If you want to make the leap, you need to learn just enough technical fluency to earn credibility while keeping your product instincts sharp.
A Case Study of Renmoney’s Job Description For Role of a Technical Product Manager
Renmoney’s Product Manager role for Front-End Channels (Mobile/Web) offers another great example of how fintech companies define “technical enough.” Unlike backend-heavy roles, this one blends user-facing design, analytics fluency and technical collaboration with engineers while tying everything directly to growth, engagement, and compliance.
This is a shift away from what Paystack requires from a technical product manager, which establishes the fact that product, team, culture and business goals influence what a company defines as a technical product manager.
| Requirement | What It Really Means | What You Can Show as a Transitioning PM |
| 5+ years product mgmt in fintech/digital banking | They want depth in financial product context | If you don’t have fintech background, show transferable domain expertise (e.g., UX-heavy or consumer-facing apps) |
| Technical Exposure (APIs, architecture, analytics) | Must be able to talk fluently with engineers about mobile/web systems | Learn how front-end interacts with back-end via APIs; study mobile architecture basics |
| Tools Proficiency (JIRA, Figma, Firebase, Mixpanel, SQL) | Expectation to be hands-on with collaboration + analytics tools | Learn product analytics platforms (Mixpanel, GA) and PM tool workflows |
| Regulatory/Compliance sensitivity | Features must align with Nigerian fintech regulations | Build awareness of data privacy, CBN/KYC guidelines, accessibility standards |
| Storytelling, stakeholder influence | Need to align C-level execs while leading engineering squads | Practice writing crisp product requirement docs and presenting them clearly |
Paystack vs. Renmoney: What “Technical Enough” Really Means
Both Paystack and Renmoney are fintechs, but their PM roles emphasize different flavors of technical competency. Paystack leans infrastructure-first (APIs, SDKs, reliability), while Renmoney leans customer-facing-first (mobile/web usability, engagement, analytics). Here’s the breakdown:
This contrast highlights something important:
Technical PMs don’t all look the same. Your “technical enough” could be shaped by the industry, the product surface (infrastructure vs. customer-facing), and the company’s maturity stage. But beneath those differences, a few fundamentals cut across. Every TPM is expected to:
- Understand APIs and system interactions (even if not writing code).
- Drive Agile delivery and backlog ownership with engineering teams.
- Make data-driven product decisions, not gut calls.
- Bake compliance into product workflows.
- Translate technical complexity into business outcomes for execs, partners, or end users.
These are the non-negotiables — the foundation of a technical career, no matter where you land. Ayotunde Salako, Senior technical product manager at Okhi Smart Addressing admits that “you’re not expected to code, but you are expected to understand how the API works, what data it returns, what errors might occur, and how those errors affect the customer experience”.
Get started with this free course from Treford “Technical Product Management Fundamentals”
Core Technical Skills Practising Product Managers Recommend
We analysed even 5 more job descriptions across fintech and health-tech. We spoke to 3 technical product manager and the following skills seem to be the most fundamentals for them, and the companies hiring for technical PM roles or hiring product managers who are technical.
Here are the skills that consistently make the difference:
- APIs & Integrations – Learn how APIs work, how to read API docs, and how data flows between systems.
- SQL Basics – Simple queries to self-serve insights and validate hypotheses.
- Product Analytics – Tools like Mixpanel, Amplitude, or Firebase; setting up events, defining KPIs.
- Architecture Awareness – Basics of mobile/web systems, client-server interactions, and cloud.
- Agile & DevOps Fluency – Sprint planning, release management, QA cycles.
- Security & Compliance Basics – PCI DSS, GDPR, NDPR — what they mean for product design.
In fact, Ayotunde Salako, a technical PM at Okhi Smart Addressing advises the following focus area as you look to upskill:
“Understanding authentication, error handling, rate limits—these are the small technical details that make or break the user experience when APIs are involved.”
“Every product manager should at least know how to read API documentation. That’s the bridge between what your system can do and how other systems can plug into it.”
“If you can write simple SQL queries, you immediately become more valuable because you don’t always have to wait for a data analyst to pull numbers for you.”
In another conversation with Olamide Akomolafe, Senior Product Manager provides a different insight on how to approach conversations with Engineers:
“Some people assume that if they take a two-week coding course, they can call themselves a technical PM. But technical PM isn’t about pretending to be an engineer. It’s about credibility. Engineers can always tell when you don’t know what you’re talking about.”
What this simply means is that you shouldn’t be learning just to show off your technical knowledge, but rather to foster mutual understanding between you and your engineers. Approach learning for technical competency as a business efficiency issue rather than just a skillset.
How to Transition from Non-Technical to a Technical Product Manager
You don’t always need to switch companies to go technical. Many PMs make the leap internally. Here’s how:
- Shadow engineers: Join backlog grooming, code review sessions (as an observer), or DevOps standups.
- Volunteer for technical-heavy projects: Own API-driven features, mobile revamps, or analytics rollouts.
- Self-serve data: Learn SQL, set up Mixpanel dashboards, define KPIs yourself.
- Find an internal mentor: Ask senior TPMs or engineering leads to walk you through system architecture.
- Signal intent to management: Let your manager know you want to transition. They’ll assign stretch projects if they know your goals.
- Upskill in context: Take short courses, but apply learnings in your current role immediately.
Recommended Courses
Here are courses we recommend if you’re ready to go all in and build your technical fluency as a product manager:
Technical Product Management Stack (Self-paced)
Technical Product Management Program (Live Sessions)
Find more technical product management courses in this article.
Final Thoughts
Moving from non-technical to technical product management isn’t about learning to code. It’s about understanding how things work well enough to ask the right questions, influence trade-offs and build products that engineers trust and customers love.
