product manager.

Some of the duties and tasks of a product manager include:

• setting the product vision and strategy: as a product manager, you determine the direction and vision for a product. Your job is to articulate the product vision to ensure the team understands it. You lay out the investment areas and prioritise them to achieve product goals. The role also involves creating a product roadmap and timeline that visualises the product's delivery.
• evaluating ideas: as a product manager, you curate ideas and prioritise those that deliver value to customers. You run the company's idea management process and determine the ideas to be developed by the design team. After reviewing the ideas, you communicate their status to customers, partners and stakeholders.
• prioritising features: during idea conceptions, many features are suggested for a product, and it is your job to rank them. As a product manager, you prioritise features by ranking them against strategic goals and initiatives. Sometimes, the process involves making difficult trade-offs based on the value new features add to a product. Defining the product's featured requirements and desired user experience is essential when prioritising.
• creating the product roadmap: the roadmap you develop as a product manager defines how the product achieves business objectives and keeps work on track. You create different roadmaps for the executive teams and engineering teams.
• analysing and reporting work progress: as a product manager, it is important to focus on results. You oversee and monitor the progress of the product development stages. You also ensure the production team is efficient and maintains the production timeline. During production, you ensure the company doesn't suffer any capacity issues and that the team has the necessary raw materials. After production, you monitor the testing processes.

A product manager works in diverse settings depending on the industry and the products they produce. For instance, if you work in the manufacturing industry, you regularly visit the production floors to ensure everything runs as expected. In pharmaceutical and technical companies, you also work with the teams on production floors. However, software product managers work on products that don't require working in a climate-controlled facility. Aside from supervising production, product managers attend meetings with stakeholders and complete administrative functions. Hence, product managers also work from an office. The role may involve travelling if the company has offsite production facilities. Sometimes, you attend conferences and tradeshows in your industry. Working remotely or from home is possible for product managers. However, you can regularly supervise projects onsite.

Depending on your employer and the industry you work in, your colleagues might include scrum masters, procurement specialists and logistics managers. You might also be working in close proximity to project engineers and project managers, as well as other specialists that could include, but not be limited to, supervisors, mining managers, marketing managers, account managers, marketing coordinators, and brand managers.

A product manager works regular business hours regardless of the industry or business sector. Product managers rarely work evenings unless they attend a client meeting or are trying to meet a deadline. Sometimes, you work weekends to assist the design or production team in keeping up with deadlines. Product managers may also work outside the 9 am to 5 pm hours if the company has an office in other time zones. Most companies employ product managers in full-time positions. Part-time and temporary contracts are rare. However, you can secure a temporary position if you manage one aspect of a larger product.

Most product managers start as part of the product team focusing on one aspect of the production before moving to senior roles. At the entry level, you oversee a small product team before moving to senior product manager roles that involve monitoring an entire production department. Most product managers progress to executive levels like vice president of product, chief technology officer, chief marketing officer or chief operating officer.

Finding your product manager job through Randstad provides important advantages such as:

• a wide variety of training and development opportunities
• an experienced contact person to provide help if needed
• a range of opportunities in your area
• get paid weekly or monthly, depending on the job
• temporary and permanent contracts

Want a permanent contract? A temporary job as a product manager is often a stepping stone to an attractive permanent job. Every year, thousands of people earn a permanent contract with great employers thanks to a temporary job found through Randstad. What's more, many companies recruit their permanent employees through Randstad too.

The main role of a product manager is to develop a new product or update product features to match the market's needs. You monitor the market, define a product vision and align stakeholders around the concept. You also supervise the idea generation, product development and introduction of new products to the market.

A product manager takes home a salary of $120,000 annually in New Zealand. At entry-level positions, your salary is slightly lower, and you take home $78,000 yearly, while experienced product managers take home $150,000 per year. The remuneration package depends on the complexity of tasks and level of experience.

Becoming a product manager is an exciting career with great prospects. You make a real impact on people's lives by developing products that solve their problems.

Applying for a product manager job is easy: create a Randstad profile and search our product manager job offers. Then simply send us your CV and cover letter. Need help with your application? Check out all our job search tips here.