Maybe I've been really lucky, but every product manager I've worked with or know personally is deeply technical. I can't imagine being successful in the job without that skill.
Product management and project management are very different career tracks (or at least, they should be); it's much more common to find technical backgrounds in product managers than project managers. I'd almost go so far as to say that if a company has project managers working with software teams, I'm not really interested in working there. Some situations do benefit from it, but my experience is that it's usually a sign of either a company that doesn't understand software development, or such a messed up situation that it will be impossible to succeed.
I'd say that the best project managers I have encountered were non technical. They were able to defer to technical people when needed but always kind of kept an arms length from it and it worked well.
The best project manager I've worked with was a lady in MissionCloud. She was PM of the consulting project that mission did for our startup. I wish I could find someone as skilled as her.
I'm sure you can imagine! Elsewhere in the thread you say you worked at Netflix, so perhaps you have spent most of your career in high-calibre companies with high hiring bars. Now, imagine PMs at 2nd and 3rd tier companies. Note that the qualifications for being a PM are...nothing really. So any kid with a university degree and a vague interest in working in tech, but with no technical skills can apply and get in as a PM. Congratulations, you have now imagined how bad these people can be!
> I can't imagine [a PM] being successful in the job without that skill.
Neither can I! But I have to agree with the parent: the overwhelming majority of PMs (for any P) that I've had to work with are technically illiterate, at the level of software engineering. I spend so much time explaining the most basic things, often over and over and over. How the system functions, and models the world around it (and thus, what is possible and what is not, at least, not without major changes) just does not ever seem to stick.
My uncharitable take (and sorry, since it sounds like I'm about to criticize your profession; hopefully, this comment doesn't apply to you) is glorified JIRA ticket pushers and deadline trackers. That said, I did work with one once who seemed to actually pay attention (and thus, learn) and was a good person too, so thus far she's been my favorite PM. But when I ask myself what would be useful to me, as a dev? … oh boy does it not look anything like the real world.
eBay, reddit, Netflix. But at reddit it was just the four of us and at Netflix we didn't really have product managers except in the UI area, but those folks were all super talented.
