Discover the intricacies of a career as a Product Manager, with an average salary of $110,000, and the factors that can affect this earning potential such as education, experience, industry, and location. Find out how Noble Desktop's training courses in coding, user-driven design, and project management can equip you with the necessary skills for this career path.

Key Insights

  • Product managers, often referred to as the "CEO of a product," manage its design, development, and appeal to customers, requiring a combination of business, design, and tech skills.
  • While a degree is not required for this role, 45% of product managers have a bachelor's degree and 68% possess a certificate or certification, with bootcamps or certificate programs seen as reliable forms of education.
  • Noble Desktop offers certificate programs in the three core skill sets required of Product Managers: Software Engineering, UX Design, and Project Management.
  • The salary range for product managers starts at approximately $70,000 and can reach up to $150,000, with factors such as level of experience, education, and location influencing the earning potential.
  • Technical Product Managers and Mobile Product Managers report the highest annual salaries of around $123,000 and $120,000 respectively, but these roles require extensive knowledge of software engineering and coding.
  • Product Managers' salaries can also vary depending on the industry and company size, with large tech firms generally offering higher pay, and the city they work in, with coastal cities usually paying more.

Product Manager Salary: How Much Do Product Managers Make?

If you’re interested in launching a new career as a Product Manager, then you’re probably wondering how much you’ll earn. 

Product Managers earn a lucrative salary with an average around $110,000 per year. That’s double the average income across all occupations in the United States. This means that by starting a new career as a Product Manager, you could double your yearly income. 

What is a Product Manager?

A Product Manager manages a specific product, including physical products, software programs, and other digital products. Product Managers are often called the “CEO of a product,” and manage its design, development, and appeal to customers. 

Product Managers need a strong combination of business skills, design skills, and tech skills. 

Because Product Managers oversee all the parts of a product, they are required to have three core skill sets: coding, user-driven design, and project management. Product Managers often work with development teams, marketing teams, design teams, stakeholders, and users to ensure the success of a product. 

Product Managers provide the “what” and “why” behind a business’s products, using research and user-driven design principles. 

What Affects Your Pay as a Product Manager

Many things can affect your salary as a Product Manager, including education, experience, industry specialization, and location. You’ll want to consider all of these factors before deciding how much you think you’ll earn as a Product Manager.

Education

A degree is not required to become a Product Manager. Product management is a skills-based field, which means that skills are more highly prized in the hiring process than education. If you want to become a Product Manager, you’ll need to demonstrate that you have the skills to do the job, not a certain level of education. 

Many Product Managers do have degrees. According to a 2021 survey, 45 percent of Product Managers have a bachelor’s degree. The most common bachelor’s degrees for Product Managers are in business, computer science, management, and marketing. More colleges and universities are offering degree programs in product management, including The University of Texas at Austin, Stanford, and Carnegie Mellon. 

One of the most reliable and recommended forms of product management education is taking a bootcamp or certificate program. In fact, 68 percent of Product Managers have a certificate or certification, making it a more popular education option than a traditional degree. Bootcamps and certificate programs are usually immersive, which means you can learn the skills you need to start your new career as a Product Manager faster. 

Depending on your current skill sets, you may choose to take a series of bootcamps on the required skills. For example, Noble Desktop offers certificate programs in the three core skill sets required of Product Managers: Software Engineering, UX Design, and Project Management. Earning certificates in these three core topics is an excellent way to demonstrate to potential employers that you have professional-level product management skills. 

Experience

Product management is still growing as a career field. This makes it very welcoming to aspiring Product Managers who have less experience. According to surveys, 33 percent of current Product Managers have between 0 and 4 years of experience. Nearly ⅓ of professional Product Managers are considered entry-level. 

Your Product Manager Portfolio needs to show that you have experience with product management. This could be tricky if you’ve never worked directly in product management. However, you can look for ways to gain this experience either at your current position or in your community. 

For example, you might design an improvement to an existing product offered by the company you currently work for. Or, you could volunteer to conduct user research at your current job. If you can’t find any opportunities in your current role, make your own. For example, you could organize a community project, such as cleaning up a riverbed, to demonstrate these skills on your Product Manager Portfolio. 

The more experience that you gain, the more your salary will increase. If you’re new to product management but have relevant experience, then you can expect to earn more than someone with no relevant experience just starting out. 

Working in one of the three product management core skills can also help prepare you for a product management role. For example, someone who has worked as a Project Manager or a UX Designer will have a head start on moving into a product management role. 

Industry

Large companies tend to pay Product Managers more than smaller companies, startups, or nonprofits. Freelance Product Managers can set their own rates but will work primarily with small-medium businesses and nonprofits and will need to accommodate those budgets.

The industry which you work in as a Product Manager can affect your yearly income. For example, Product Managers at big tech firms, such as Meta or Google, earn around $175,000 annually. Product Managers at Walmart earn around $150,000. 

Product Managers at big companies can also be eligible for large bonuses. For example, Amazon pays its Product Managers an average salary of around $140,000. However, they typically earn around $75,000 in bonuses and stock options, making their annual income around $215,000. Keep in mind that although big companies often pay more, startups and smaller companies are more likely to hire Product Managers with less experience. 

The industries which are currently hiring the most Product Managers include tech, financial services, healthcare, retail and e-commerce, manufacturing, education, and entertainment. 

Location

Where you live can also affect your salary. Certain areas and major metropolitan areas will typically pay Product Managers more, although you must consider the potentially high cost of living in these areas. 

Product Managers who work on the West Coast in cities like Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle earn the most with an average salary around $120,000. East Coast cities like New York and Boston pay Product Managers around $110,000. Product Managers in southern cities, such as Atlanta, earn around $100,000. Midwestern Product Managers have the lowest average salary around $95,000.

The cities with the highest salaries for Product Managers are San Francisco, with an average salary of around $130,000, and Austin, where Product Managers earn around $125,000. Compare these salaries to Houston, TX, which has a lower cost of living than the coasts, and Product Managers earn around $97,000. 

Keep in mind that cost of living can outweigh these higher salaries for some. Another factor to consider with location is that many Product Managers work remotely. Surveys show that around 70 percent of Product Managers work remotely at least part of the time. 

Specialization

Product management is still a growing field that hasn’t fully defined its specializations. However, there are specializations organically emerging from the growth of the field. For example, Payments Product Manager and Growth Product Manager have become popular in product management job listings. Specializing in one of these could lead to a higher eventual salary. 

Pay Range for Product Managers

The salary range for Product Managers starts around $70,000 and reaches a high of around $150,000. All of the factors listed above affect how much a Product Manager earns, including level of experience, education, and location. 

Highest-Earning Job Titles for Product Managers

Certain types of Product Managers can also earn more. Technical Product Managers report the highest annual salary of around $123,000. Mobile Product Managers also earn high salaries of around $120,000. Note that both of these roles require a stronger knowledge of software engineering and coding. 

Learn the Skills to Become a Product Manager at Noble Desktop

Noble Desktop offers business, design, and coding classes live online and in-person classes at their state-of-the-art campus in Midtown Manhattan. Training at Noble Desktop offers aspiring Product Managers a huge head start since they specialize in the three core job skills: coding, user-driven design, and project management. 

All of Noble Desktop’s courses are taught by expert instructors, have guaranteed small class sizes, and feature a “free retake” option, meaning you can “retake” any course for free for up to one year to continue developing your skills. Noble Desktop uses a unique approach to career training: their expert instructors teach a “micro-lecture” and then immediately guide students through applying what they’ve learned through real-world, hands-on projects. This unique approach guarantees that you’ll learn the skills you need to launch a new career as a Product Manager. 

Hiring managers report that certificates and certifications move a resume to the top of the pile. Noble Desktop offers certificate programs in the three core skill sets: software engineering, user-driven design (UX), and project management. Earning certificates in these core skill sets can help you launch a new career as a Product Manager. 

Noble Desktop’s Software Engineering Certificate provides the technical experience needed by a Product Manager. This certificate program is divided into two parts: front end development (what you see) and back end development (how it works). In the first part, expert instructors guide students through coding in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. In the second part, expert instructors guide students through the fundamentals of coding in Python, Django, and querying with SQL. Professional Product Managers often recommend learning SQL as an additional skill. This certificate program will give you a head start. Graduates earn a New York State Licensed Certificate in Software Engineering, which is shareable on LinkedIn. 

Product Managers are advocates for the user: they know how to use research and data to make sure the product meets the user’s needs. To do this, you’ll need skills in user experience (UX) design. Noble Desktop’s UX & UI Design Certificate provides comprehensive training in user experience (UX) and user interface (UI) design. Students are guided through hands-on, real-world projects to learn user-driven design principles, user research, product prototype building, creating product case studies, and visual designs. This certificate program also trains students in using Figma and Sketch for design and prototyping. Graduates earn a New York State Licensed Certificate in UX & UI design, which is verifiable and shareable on Linkedin. 

Project management is a very hot career path on its own and one of the core skill sets of becoming a Product Manager. You might think of a Product Manager as handling the “what” and “why” and project management as handling the “how” and “when.” Noble Desktop’s Project Management Bootcamp project management courses are taught by PMP-certified Project Managers. Students are guided through real-world projects to develop skills in the Project Life Cycle, project management terminology, project selection and scheduling, resource management, risk management, and Agile Frameworks. 

If you’d like to read more about becoming a Product Manager, you might check out this Product Management Learn Hub. Combining these certificates on your resume is a fantastic way to launch a new career as a Product Manager. 

Key Takeaways