Video summary
The video introduces the forward deployed product manager as an emerging and high-demand role that offers significant career growth, competitive income, and direct interaction with clients. Unlike traditional product managers who work remotely from headquarters, these professionals embed themselves directly within client organizations to collaborate closely with engineers and understand specific customer needs in real-time. This hands-on approach allows them to quickly identify gaps between product requirements and actual implementation, make necessary configuration changes, and decide which features should be part of the core platform versus those requiring customization for specific clients. The role has gained particular traction in the AI era, where companies need experts who can implement various AI models and train them on existing customer data to optimize unique workflows across different industries like healthcare and fintech.
A key example provided is Serena, a former PhD student in information systems who joined Microsoft as a forward deployed product manager. Her role involved sitting inside client bases to understand how to deploy agile features and utilize existing AI models to enhance workflows for diverse sectors while adding customized solutions tailored to each client's needs. The speaker emphasizes that this role overlaps heavily with AI product management, requiring a deep technical understanding of AI models, big data pipelines, and the ability to build robust infrastructure for customers. Success in this position relies on an "iron triangle" of collaboration between forward deployed managers, core platform product managers, and forward deployed engineers, ensuring that the deployed solutions effectively meet customer demands while aligning with broader company strategies.
Beyond technical execution, the role demands exceptional people skills and relationship management, which the speaker argues are uniquely human traits that AI cannot replace in the near future. The day-to-day work involves conducting voice-of-customer interviews, documenting requirements, analyzing broken processes, and leveraging new technologies to improve customer outcomes. This direct engagement provides immediate feedback on product impact, making the work highly engaging for extroverted individuals who thrive on seeing their efforts translate into tangible results for users. While technical skills may eventually be augmented or replaced by AI tools over the next few years, the ability to build trust and manage complex human relationships remains the most critical competency for success in this field.
To prepare for a career in this niche, the video outlines three essential skill sets: strong communication and people management abilities, general or specialized AI product management knowledge, and sufficient technical proficiency to discuss architecture, APIs, data models, and integration platforms. For those interested in deepening their technical expertise without needing to code from scratch, the speaker recommends a curated list of eight top technical courses, most of which are available for free online. Additionally, viewers are encouraged to review interview preparation resources, including playlists covering the hardest questions product managers face, to help them land dream job offers within 90 days. The video concludes by directing interested candidates to external links for further training and career coaching services designed to accelerate their path into this exciting and evolving profession.
Read the full video transcript
There's a surge demand of forward
deployed PL management role in the job
market right now. It present great
career growth opportunities, high
income, also get very extensive
interaction with the client. On top that
also gives you a lots of hands-on AI
experience. However, majority of the
candidate today does not even know what
is forward deployed product management,
how to break in and whether they're a
good fit for this role. In this video,
I'm going to demystify what is forward
deployed product manager, what the roles
responsibilities and how it's rare to AI
product management within four minutes.
Make sure to stay until the end of the
video where I share with top eight
technical courses all the product
manager must to take and most of them
are free.
[music]
Hey guys, this is Dr. Nancy Lee, a
direct product feature in Forbes. I've
helped thousands people land a dream PM
job offer in fan companies and unicorn
startup and continue get promoted as a
product leader. If you're interested in
landing a dream product management job
offer within 90 days, go to
pmacelerator.io
to learn more. In this channel, we talk
about tech trends and free product
management training. Like and subscribe
and turn the bell button so be notified
every time I publish a new video on
Tuesday. If you find any of free tips
useful, make sure to like this button
until turn blue because it's the only
way YouTube algorithm is going to
recognize me. Forward deploy poly
manager is new but it's also very fun.
So what is actually a forward deploy
poly manager? It is a type of primager
who work inside of client organization
instead of working in the product
organization alone further away from
customers. They go into the client
organization and working alongside of
for deployed engineer to understand
customer needs and write in a
requirement and also actually watch and
implement the product with a for
deployed engineer so that they can
quickly capture what kind of product
actually falls fall short of the
requirement [music] and how to make
changes configuration of the product and
also making a lots of technical
decisions regarding what kind of product
feature goes into the core platform
feature and What features need to be
customized for a specific client and
this is especially true for AI product
management because the surge of forward
deployed engine is actually coming from
the race of the AI era. Currently a lot
of company want to do some kind of AI
product but each company's data and the
customer workflow is very different. So
they require lots of implementation of
how you're able to implement [music]
different kind of AI model and train on
top of existing data for customers.
That's where the forward deployed PL
manager is coming in. Recently I have a
student Serena. She joined Microsoft as
a forward deployed PL manager. Her
background was a PhD student [music] in
information systems. So after Microsoft
hires her, she actually spent lots of
time sitting inside a client base
understand how to deploy different kind
of agile features and how to use
different existing AML models to help
different kind of companies such as
healthcare, hospitals or fintech
companies to optimize their AI workflow
using the existing platform by Microsoft
and adding on top of customized feature
for the client. Serena is going to
record a future episode on our product
insider podcast. She gonna give you a
deep dive regarding what's a day in life
as a forward deploy product manager in
Microsoft once the podcast is available.
I'm going to link it right here. And
forward deploy product managers actually
overlap a lot as [music] AI product
managers because I've required lots of
technical understanding of AI models and
how to use AI and how to build [music]
big data pipeline for your customers. Uh
so if you want to compare forward
deployment product manager and AIPM you
can watch this video right here. We'll
give you a deep dive regarding what is
AI product management and you can
[music] learn more about AIPM over
there. I'm going to link it in the
description of the show note as well.
Now for deploy manager mainly work with
three type of people for deploy manager
core platform product manager and for
deployed engineers. So those iron
triangle is going to define the success
of the product we deploy for customers.
So if you're interesting becoming a
forward deployed product manager, like
this video and comment yes below and let
me know why you're interested. Now let's
talk about the day in the life as a
forward deployed product manager and
what your future work look like. So
forward deployed product manager is
doing very similar product management
job but it's just on the client side. So
you engage with clients on a day-to-day
basis and you do a lot of voice c
interviews and writing requirement and
invest in the existing processes for
your current customers to understand
[music] what's broken with the current
workflow and how to leverage new
technology such as AI or any other new
trending tech to help the customers to
enhance their outcome. So it's actually
a little bit unlike a field engineer but
it's more focus on business and customer
side work instead of only doing
technical element. [music] The most fun
part of forward deploy policy is
actually working with customers [music]
and you need to do lots of people
relationship management. On top of that,
you also need to really understand the
[music] true application of your product
and actually this become a true
motivation for people like me who is
very extroverted or many of you guys
like this who actually see how customers
use your product. then you quickly
understand it's working not working and
optimize a product specific for the
customer so that it's much faster to see
impact to your customer in your own eyes
instead of waiting for the core platform
to make changes. So if I start over for
my product management career from the
beginning, I will actually want to
become forward deployed product manager
because it's much more engaging exciting
to see the impact you make for the
customers and I also believe the type of
people relationship is only skill cannot
be replaced by AI. uh because as in a
day all the technical skills is going to
get replaced by AI in the coming two to
three years but the people relationship
is most important skills a human need to
possess and this forward deploy engineer
is going to give you those opportunity
to horn your people skills and give you
so much satisfaction when you work with
customers and see the impact you make
for them. Now let's talk about key roles
responsibilities as a forward deployed
PL manager. You need to do a lots of
product requirement documentation just
like traditional PL management. However,
you do a lot of realtime prioritization
of your road map features and do very
comprehensive trade-offs to understand
those features. Then you create very
comprehensive road map to communicate
both with customers and also with the
core product leadership with your own
company. And you also need do a lots of
technical understanding of current
technology especially AI technology
which one is feasible for [music] your
customers. This is actually overlap a
lot with AI product management and I
have a separate video teaching you what
a day in life as AI product manager. You
can watch a video right here and also
going to link it in the description of
the show notes so that you can see how
much those two roles are actually
intertwined and connected. Now let's
talk about the skills you need at the
forward deploy per manager. Number one,
[music] you need a lots of people skills
and communication skills because at the
end of the day you're working with
customers and managing their
relationship. Number two, you also need
the general product management skill or
AI product management skill. Of course,
you're still a type of product
management. Number three, you need lots
of technical skills. You need to have
enough technical knowledge to do
architecture design and visibility
evaluation. Of course, you're supported
by engineering team, but you're able to
speak the technical language such as
API, data models, [music] and
integration platforms. If you specialize
in forward deployed pre- manager for AI
product, you also need additional
technical knowledge of AI [music]
such as AI models, e valves, guard
rails, hallucination and data pipeline.
Speaking of the technical knowledge, I
prepared the top eight technical courses
for product managers and even if you
don't know how to code, you can go to
this website to download top eight
courses and most of them are free and
get [music] started right away. I'm also
going to link it in the description of
this video. Now once you decide a
forward deploy product manager is the
way to go and the next step is actually
preparing for your upcoming product
[music] management interview. I have a
playlist of all the interview questions
and answers and especially the top six
hardest interview questions for product
managers. You can watch the video right
here and start preparation right away.
If you need help land your next dream
product manager job offer within 90
days, make sure to come and PM below.
I'm going to send you link to book free
call with our career advisor to get
start your product management career. If
you find this video useful, insightful,
make sure like, comment, subscribe to
the channel. This is Dr. Nity from
pmacerator.io.