15/06/2021
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IT guy who doesn't code. 5 good reasons to become a project manager
Miscellaneous / / August 22, 2023
Reason #1. Project managers get paid well
While jokes like “How long can a developer live without a pay raise” circulate on the Internet, project managers smile enigmatically. The salary of a programmer-joon varies depending on the language and starts from 48 thousand rubles. Beginning projects from the first working day may count on 65 thousand. And their median remuneration is 140 thousand rubles.
Lera Fimina
Project manager at Yandex Practicum, mentor on the course "Project Manager”, a teacher on the course “Business Analyst”.
As a rule, once every six months, the manager holds a meeting with each member of the team, where they discuss the results of work and determine points of growth. Such a conversation awaits the project manager. In parallel, his work is evaluated by the team. Based on this, goals for the next six months are determined. The increase in wages depends on their achievement.
If you willingly take on additional tasks and upgrade new skills, pleasant numbers on the payslip will not take long.
Pavel Pirogov
Senior Course InstructorProject Manager» in Yandex Practicum.
I have been a project manager for 10 years. During this time, wages have increased six times. There is no magic pill: you need to continuously engage in professional development and self-study.
Both a person with a background in IT, and a graduate of a philological or economic faculty can become a project from scratch. Yandex Practicum has a course "Project Manager”, where the profession can be mastered in 6 or 9 months, depending on the program you choose. Both options are suitable for those who have never worked as a manager and have not led teams. In the nine-month program, in addition to the basic program, there is additional time for honing soft skills: negotiating, organizing meetings, searching for new employees. Course mentors are experienced leaders who have tested in practice all the tools they teach students.
To learn moreReason number 2. This is an IT profession that does not require coding
Variables, conditional statements, and syntax are words that a project manager hears all the time. But he does not need to work with them with his hands. To do this, there are programmers who just need to set tasks and set deadlines. It is more important to understand the architecture of the project - to understand how software components interact with each other. This helps to avoid emergency situations. Let’s say a team is developing a customer account for an online store. It integrates an external payment system, the operation of which does not depend on your employees. The project needs to provide a contingency plan in case of failures and distribute responsibilities in advance.
Pavel Pirogov
The project manager team is made up of experts, including technical ones, who know what needs to be done and how. His task is to manage them, to be a good communicator and organizer.
Although the project manager does not write code, he must understand how to correctly calculate the team's workload and plan deadlines. For a beginner, this can be difficult, so it is better to consult with the team leader and developers.
Lera Fimina
You can use the Planning Poker method. The whole team gathers, and each employee says how much time he will need to work on a specific task. For example, you have four programmers. Two people think they can do it in 4 hours, one in an hour, and one in 8. The manager needs to talk to those who gave the maximum and minimum marks. It may turn out that other employees did not take into account important details. This is how you calculate the average time per task.
Reason number 3. Managers interact with talented people
Artistic designers who communicate with stickers and screenshots from Figma. Developers talking to each other in a mixture of Russian and English and offering to “pick a hotfix”. Testers who know exactly what is a feature and what is a bug. The project manager team has many interesting specialists with different skills in digital. Thanks to such a diverse environment, the work of the project is never boring.
Lera Fimina
At the start of my career, I didn't know much about 3D modeling. For example, what is the difference between the development of High-poly and Low-poly models and how much time it takes to render. In order to manage the team, answer customer questions, and anticipate mistakes, I needed to immerse myself in this area.
Communication with employees of different departments allows you to get not only working skills. People often come to IT who have already tried themselves in other areas - from waiters to doctors. This means they can share experiences that are unique to these areas.
Pavel Pirogov
Now, when everyone has gone around the world, you can learn a lot of new and interesting things about life in different cities, about the features of other countries. It's great to broaden your horizons.
Reason number 4. With this profession, you can work in different areas of IT
Project and people management skills are pretty versatile. If you can fine-tune your processes while creating a mobile app, it will be easy for you to switch to web development. The ability to set comfortable deadlines and provide the team with everything necessary for work will come in handy in any field, whether you are running projects for a bank or in the media. A profession allows you to focus on one area or try yourself in several - you definitely won't get tired of the routine.
Lera Fimina
Now I am leading projects in the courses "Specialist in Data Science" and "Data Analyst" in Yandex Practicum. Prior to that, she worked in the field of XR technologies – augmented and virtual reality. The approaches to managing the team remained the same, only the area in which you need to dive has changed. I used to think about how to implement an AR project, what are the specifics and trends in this industry. Now - what are the stages in creating online courses and how to go through them correctly.
Reason number 5. This is an opportunity to pump diplomacy and communications
A project manager must be able to be either a psychologist, or a negotiator, or a translator from client to design - and vice versa. He maneuvers between the requirements of the customer and the capabilities of the team so that everyone is satisfied.
Lera Fimina
There are creative guys who are important to inspire, to choose the right words. And there are people to whom it is worth coming only with numbers and specifics. The project manager needs to find an approach to each team member. There will definitely be a lot of communication in the work, you will have to understand the problems and learn how to put together "puzzles" so that everything works.
The work of a project manager is the constant development of empathy, the ability to take into account different points of view and find compromises.
Pavel Pirogov
Conflicts are natural. This is neither good nor bad. They only indicate problems, and if the causes are eliminated, then work will become easier. It is important for the project to focus on the essence of the issue, and not on the people between whom there was a misunderstanding. The hardest part of the job is getting fired. And the most interesting thing is to observe the unity of the team. It's great when there are people you can rely on, and they are your employees.
In 2021, HeadHunter wrote that the demand for project managers will not fall in the labor market for many years to come. The forecast turned out to be correct: in 2023 on the portal placed more than 17 thousand vacancies for projects. And so that novice managers get their first offer faster, Yandex Practicum has a career center. Thanks to its experts, 69% of the graduates of the Practicum find new job. If you are also determined to do this, there is a good chance that you will succeed. By the way, in the sectionManagement» you can find materials on mentoring, unit economics, financial management and other skills that are useful for a leader. Any Practicum course starts with free lessons. On them you will try to solve the problems that you will encounter during the training, and you will understand whether you like the profession or not.
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