How to hire a technical product manager

How to hire a technical product manager, step by step

Here's a step-by-step technical product manager hiring guide:

• Step 1: Identify your hiring needs
• Step 2: Create an ideal candidate profile
• Step 3: Make a budget
• Step 4: Write a technical product manager job description
• Step 5: Post your job
• Step 6: Interview candidates
• Step 7: Send a job offer and onboard your new technical product manager
• Step 8: Go through the hiring process checklist

What does a technical product manager do?

Post a technical product manager job for free, promote it for a fee

Post free

1. Identify your hiring needs

   First, determine the employments status of the technical product manager you need to hire. Certain technical product manager roles might require a full-time employee, whereas others can be done by part-time workers or contractors.

   Determine employee vs contractor status

   Is the person you're thinking of hiring a US citizen or green card holder?

   Yes

   No

   A technical product manager's background is also an important factor in determining whether they'll be a good fit for the position. For example, technical product managers from different industries or fields will have radically different experiences and will bring different viewpoints to the role. You also need to consider the candidate's previous level of experience to make sure they'll be comfortable with the job's level of seniority.

   Here's a comparison of technical product manager salaries for various roles:

   Type of Technical Product Manager	Description	Hourly rate
   Technical Product Manager	Advertising, promotions, and marketing managers plan programs to generate interest in products or services. They work with art directors, sales agents, and financial staff members.	$42-77
   Product Lead	A product lead is responsible for monitoring the development of new products and services of an organization, starting from brand conceptualization to official market release and distribution. Product leads identify effective product management by conducting data analysis and evaluating market statistics of customer demands... Show more	$41-78
   Product Director	The duties of a product director depend on one's place or industry of employment. Typically, their responsibilities revolve around overseeing the product development operations to ensure smooth flow and efficiency, devise strategies to improve processes, gather relevant data such as sales and customer feedback, and coordinate with different departments in developing new products and services... Show more	$50-101

   Show more

2. Create an ideal candidate profile

   Common skills:

   • Technical Product
   • Product Management
   • Cloud
   • User Stories
   • Project Management
   • Scrum
   • Software Development
   • SQL
   • QA
   • API
   • Java
   • Product Roadmap
   • Product Strategy
   • Product Vision

   Check all skills

   Responsibilities:

   • Manage user interface design for PC products, working with designers and developers to create look and feel.
   • Manage the UI domain team encompassing user interface functionality, global behavior definitions, new user paradigms and concepts.
   • Task with product ownership; implement and improve the product operations following SDLC methodologies, managing and meeting the stakeholder expectations.
   • Design and lead implementation of web-base Java application for high volume transaction processing.
   • Manage horizontal UX prototyping resource needs, implementing effective collaborative expectations and cross-product timeline allocation strategies.
   • Involve championing the development of product requirements, use cases, and user stories for a target cloud document delivery service.

   More technical product manager duties

3. Make a budget

   Including a salary range in your technical product manager job description is a great way to entice the best and brightest candidates. A technical product manager salary can vary based on several factors:

   • Location. For example, technical product managers' average salary in oklahoma is 36% less than in california.
   • Seniority. Entry-level technical product managers earn 45% less than senior-level technical product managers.
   • Certifications. A technical product manager with a few certifications under their belt will likely demand a higher salary.
   • Company. Working for a prestigious company or an exciting start-up can make a huge difference in a technical product manager's salary.

   Average technical product manager salary

   $120,052yearly

   $57.72 hourly rate

   ---

   Entry-level technical product manager salary

   $89,000 yearly salary

   Updated January 21, 2026

   Average technical product manager salary by state

   Rank	State	Avg. salary	Hourly rate
   1	California	$138,950	$67
   2	Washington	$126,573	$61
   3	Oregon	$117,009	$56
   4	New York	$112,562	$54
   5	Massachusetts	$109,883	$53
   6	Virginia	$106,812	$51
   7	Pennsylvania	$106,273	$51
   8	Arizona	$106,103	$51
   9	Texas	$103,928	$50
   10	Connecticut	$101,304	$49
   11	Utah	$99,104	$48
   12	District of Columbia	$98,579	$47
   13	North Carolina	$95,511	$46
   14	Illinois	$94,803	$46
   15	Georgia	$94,318	$45
   16	Ohio	$94,237	$45
   17	Maine	$94,081	$45
   18	Missouri	$89,439	$43
   19	Minnesota	$89,245	$43
   20	Colorado	$88,983	$43

   Average technical product manager salary by company

   Company

   Rank	Company	Average salary	Hourly rate	Job openings
   1	Meta	$174,790	$84.03	461
   2	Netflix	$173,206	$83.27	71
   3	The Walt Disney Company	$166,281	$79.94	100
   4	Discovery	$164,208	$78.95
   5	Google	$162,164	$77.96	437
   6	ByteDance	$161,312	$77.55	20
   7	McKinsey & Company Inc	$160,307	$77.07	10
   8	DoorDash	$160,125	$76.98	59
   9	ICE Mortgage Technology	$158,439	$76.17
   10	StubHub	$158,408	$76.16	12
   11	Apple	$157,200	$75.58	92
   12	eBay	$156,555	$75.27	26
   13	PayPal	$155,058	$74.55	30
   14	Microsoft	$154,169	$74.12	453
   15	Brookfield Properties	$153,347	$73.72	6
   16	Zoox	$152,541	$73.34	43
   17	10x Genomics	$151,841	$73.00	1
   18	Cruise Automation	$151,178	$72.68
   19	NVIDIA	$150,990	$72.59	83
   20	Match Group	$147,998	$71.15	24

4. Writing a technical product manager job description

   A good technical product manager job description should include a few things:

   • Summary of the role
   • List of responsibilities
   • Required skills and experience

   Including a salary range and the first name of the hiring manager is also appreciated by candidates. Here's an example of a technical product manager job description:

   Technical product manager job description example

   This opportunity is part of the Global Technology Infrastructure & Operations team (GTIO), where our mission is to deliver modern and relevant technology that supports the way McDonald's works. We provide best-in-class foundational technology products and services including Global Networking, Cloud, End User Computing, and IT Service Management. It's our goal to always provide an engaging, relevant, and simple experience for our customers.
   
   The Cloud Operations Technical Product Manager role is part of the Cloud Ecosystem team in Global Technology Infrastructure & Operations. The role reports to the Senior Manager of Operations and is responsible for driving the Operations cloud platform engineering outcomes, managing the agile product and process, and driving alignment with the Cloud Business Office and other Cloud Platform Engineering teams (DevOps and security).
   
   This is an exciting opportunity for an experienced technology leader to help shape the transformation of infrastructure and operations products and services to the entire McDonalds environment.
   Responsibilities & Accountabilities:
   
   Manages a strategically important technology product, and/or suite of products with significant business impact. Owns the definition of the product(s) roadmap.
   
   Guides a team of technical product managers expected to broadly influence across a large portion of the organization or with a charter to innovate/disrupt a strategically important domain.
   
   Maintains a strategic focus yet retains an appropriate level of hands-on management. Partners with business leaders, technical product managers, and / or architects to determine the long-term viability of systems/products, from business and technology standpoints.
   
   Communicates ideas effectively, verbally and in writing, to a wide range of audiences, including Directors and VPs. Fosters a constructive dialogue, harmonizes discordant views, and leads the resolution of issues.
   
   Decomposes significantly complex problems into straight-forward solutions. Consistently brings strong, data-driven business, and technical judgment to decisions.
   
   Identifies core problems or opportunities within business processes. Understands the root cause and impacts for the project and other teams.
   
   Removes bottlenecks to enable your team(s) to work independently. Drives team members to proactively identify gaps and opportunities (e.g., services, workflows, tooling) within or between markets and other parts of the organization.
   
   Invests time to coach junior technical product managers to refine their capabilities and close skill gaps. Works closely with technical product managers and leads by example.
   
   Responsible for the “Build, Test, Deploy” and “Operate & Manage” capabilities within the operations cloud platform engineering functions.
   
   Responsible for codifying standards and guardrails, packaging, self-service, automation and continuous improvement of the cloud platform operations.

   Copy this example

   

5. Post your job

   To find the right technical product manager for your business, consider trying out a few different recruiting strategies:

   • Consider internal talent. One of the most important sources of talent for any company is its existing workforce.
   • Ask for referrals. Reach out to friends, family members, and current employees and ask if they know or have worked with technical product managers they would recommend.
   • Recruit at local colleges. Attend job fairs at local colleges to recruit technical product managers who meet your education requirements.
   • Social media platforms. LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter now have more than 3.5 billion users, and you can use social media to reach potential job candidates.

   Post your job online:

   • Post your technical product manager job on Zippia to find and recruit technical product manager candidates who meet your exact specifications.
   • Use field-specific websites.
   • Post a job on free websites.

6. Interview candidates

   Your first interview with technical product manager candidates should focus on their interest in the role and background experience. As the hiring process goes on, you can learn more about how they'd fit into the company culture in later rounds of interviews.

   It's also good to ask about candidates' unique skills and talents. You can move on to the technical interview if a candidate is good enough for the next step.

   The right interview questions can help you assess a candidate's hard skills, behavioral intelligence, and soft skills.

7. Send a job offer and onboard your new technical product manager

   Once you have selected a candidate for the technical product manager position, it is time to create an offer letter. In addition to salary, the offer letter should include details about benefits and perks that are available to the employee. Ensuring your offer is competitive is vital, as qualified candidates may be considering other job opportunities. The candidate may wish to negotiate the terms of the offer, and it is important to be open to discussion and reach a mutually beneficial agreement. After the offer has been accepted, it is a good idea to formalize the agreement with a contract.

   You should also follow up with applicants who don't get the job with an email letting them know that you've filled the position.

   To prepare for the new technical product manager first day, you should share an onboarding schedule with them that covers their first period on the job. You should also quickly complete any necessary paperwork, such as employee action forms and onboarding documents like I-9, benefits enrollment, and federal and state tax forms. Finally, Human Resources must ensure a new employee file is created for internal record keeping.

8. Go through the hiring process checklist

   • Determine employee type (full-time, part-time, contractor, etc.)
   • Submit a job requisition form to the HR department
   • Define job responsibilities and requirements
   • Establish budget and timeline
   • Determine hiring decision makers for the role
   • Write job description
   • Post job on job boards, company website, etc.
   • Promote the job internally
   • Process applications through applicant tracking system
   • Review resumes and cover letters
   • Shortlist candidates for screening
   • Hold phone/virtual interview screening with first round of candidates
   • Conduct in-person interviews with top candidates from first round
   • Score candidates based on weighted criteria (e.g., experience, education, background, cultural fit, skill set, etc.)
   • Conduct background checks on top candidates
   • Check references of top candidates
   • Consult with HR and hiring decision makers on job offer specifics
   • Extend offer to top candidate(s)
   • Receive formal job offer acceptance and signed employment contract
   • Inform other candidates that the position has been filled
   • Set and communicate onboarding schedule to new hire(s)
   • Complete new hire paperwork (i9, benefits enrollment, tax forms, etc.)

   Sign up to download full list

   Sign up

How much does it cost to hire a technical product manager?