I must admit that I was getting a bit worried. I initially thought that the job I should shoot for was either project manager or Agile coach. Not having been in the job market for 5+ years though, I wasn’t really sure of what position I should be looking for based on my capabilities and skills. I’ve spoken with friends and colleagues, my school career center, and numerous recruiters. While my school career center helped me enormously with my resume, it was talking with recruiters that got me on track. Based on those conversations, it is a Product Management position that I am looking for. From what I’ve found thus far, it is perfect for me.

Product management is a cross between business and engineering. You need to have an engineering background as you interface with development teams, develop requirement and functional specifications, and are responsible for all stages of the product lifecycle. You need to have business experience as you will interface with customers, other parts of the organization where you work (including executives), measure success of projects against business objectives, and take full ownership of one or more products.

For the past 5 years with Atlantic Dominion Solutions, I have worked with more than 25 clients to hone requirements, develop internal and web-based applications using Ruby on Rails, and measure the success of launches. In addition, we have launched 3 SaaS applications of our own, taking them from idea to requirements and mockups to development to launch. Lately I had the fortune to work with a local entrepreneur, helping him to flesh out his vision and then create a requirements document which he used for bids. And the entire time I’ve owned Atlantic Dominion Solutions, I’ve worked with great developers from whom I’ve learned a lot.

While it may seem obvious that finding the right job is about knowing where you fit, for me, that has taken a few weeks to determine. If you are like me, and you sit between business and engineering, and you want to take ownership and responsibility for the success of a product, then product management may be for you too.

If you’re looking for a highly skilled product manager then consider me, I’m worth it.