Most product management roles require experience (and rightly so!), but thanks to Google, Facebook, and Marissa Mayer, who was responsible for developing Associate Product Manager programs for recent graduates, there are more opportunities for aspiring Product Managers than ever before.
The Associate Product Manager Program is an elite rotational program, consisting of opportunities across different teams, designed for graduates who are interested in exploring product development and leadership opportunities. For each rotation, the Associate Product Manager or Rotational Product Manager works with a different product organization within the company. At Facebook, for example, participants might rotate through ads, timeline, or search.
Many leading technology companies provide Associate and Rotational Product Manager programs to help aspiring product enthusiasts to become successful product leaders.
EDIT: There are 3 new entrants to this list, added it to the end of this article!
Also, if you?re from outside of the US looking for a similar program to get started with your Product Management Journey ? do check out Insurjo ? Goodluck!
This article covers fifteen amazing Associate Product Manager (APM) and Rotational Product Manager (RPM) job opportunities. Some of them are currently accepting applications, so hurry and apply!
1. Google Associate Product Manager Program
One of the pioneers of the program, the Google Associate Product Manager program consists of two 12-month rotations, where you will work with Googlers from Engineering, Sales, Marketing, and Finance across their portfolio of technological innovations. The Google APM program has been open for a bit so you might want to hurry!
2. Facebook Rotational Product Manager Program
The Facebook Rotational Product Manager Program is an entry-level rotational program for budding product managers. It?s an 18-month program encompassing, one month of training, three rotations across different product teams, and a two-week global research trip. One highlight of the Facebook RPM program is that RPMs do not need a computer science degree and no technical background is required, so if you want to solve problems along with the world?s largest social network, this is your chance!
3. Uber Associate Product Manager Program
In this program, you will join three teams over the course of 18 months (three six-month rotations) across all of Uber, including Rider, Driver, Eats, Bikes, Self-Driving Vehicles, et al. If you?re a young graduate who wants to change the way the world moves from A to B, this is your chance!
4. Twitter Associate Product Manager Program
This is a 2-year program where the Twitter APMs go through two, one-year rotations on various product teams across Twitter. While they don?t particularly screen for prior knowledge of consumer behaviors, a strong quantitative background to support data-informed decision making and a deep interest for product, media and platforms would definitely be a key decision maker. The applications for the Twitter APM program are open till October this year!
5. Yahoo Associate Product Manager Program
As a continuation of the historic Yahoo APM program, Yahoo now offers APMs an even larger product portfolio and opportunities for impact. Over the course of two years, you will drive the product vision, strategy, and roadmap for two different teams. As an APM at Oath, you will drive product development and strategy for some of the world?s largest products and platforms across domains like news, finance, sports, video, and more. Apply here.
6. Dropbox Rotation Program
The Dropbox Rotation Program is a 12-month program designed to provide participants with experience within a number of business functions across the company, learn a range of skills, build institutional knowledge, and identify functional interest for future placement. They are currently hiring a graduate level PM here.
7. The KPCB Product Fellows Program
While in the traditional sense, this is not an Associate or Rotational program, the KPCB program is one of the most sought after entry level fellowships in the Product space! Their portfolio of companies count some of the fastest growing start-ups in the Bay area and the community is one you?ll treasure for life ? Applications open in January, don?t miss this chance.
8. Microsoft New Graduate and MACH Program
The Microsoft Academy for College Hires (MACH) is a two-year, customized learning experience for new hires in various full-time roles within the Evangelism, Finance, IT, Marketing, Operations, Sales and Services organizations. This is a great opportunity to create next-generation software solutions and applications and solve big problems in the competitive cloud-first, mobile-first world
9. LinkedIn Strategy & Analytics Rotation Program
LinkedIn?s Strategy & Analytics Program is a highly selective two-year program comprised of four six-month rotations across LinkedIn?s business operations, sales operations, and finance and strategy groups. That?s a lot of learning opportunities! Keep an eye out for open applications next year.
10. Intuit Rotational Development Program
You?ll spend two years as a Rotational Product Manager at Intuit working on a new high-impact project in different parts of the company every six months. This includes end-to-end product development process across an exciting range of products. If you love digging deep into customer problems and come up with a way to solve that problem through a new feature or product intuitively, this one?s for you!
11. Cisco Job Rotational Program (JRP)
This program provides the opportunity for recent graduates to experience the diverse world of a product manager in tech. Through a ?free market? approach to rotations, the program focuses on cultivating a diverse individual experience and crafting a community of rock star future leaders. It is intended to develop networking guides across some of Cisco?s core product lines: Networking, IoT, Management, Security, and Cloud across ? 3 different roles across 3 years and the best part is that you get to choose which one you want to pursue!
12. Workday Associate Product Manager Program
The technical APM program at Workday exposes new hires to a range of teams within the Workday technology stack including: Tools, Analytics and Workday Cloud Platform. Participants rotate through 3?4 technical teams with the objective of solving some of the most complex technical problems the enterprise software industry faces. The objectives of your rotations are to enhance the way customers interact with data, improve performance, scalability and ensure operational excellence of our products. This 12?24 month program supports APM?s through their journey of becoming a versatile, well networked PM who is ready to apply full-stack context to any problem. (Thanks Kamryn!)
13. Zynga Rotational Product Manager Program
Over the course of this 18-month program, you?ll go through three rotations. You might work on creating new merchandising strategies for live products, designing onboarding flows for an upcoming game, or growth hacking new distribution channels across the portfolio.
14. Toronto Associate Product Manager Program
Outside of the major Silicon Valley product companies, there are not many APM programs that fully empower and train participants to become a successful Product manager. However, a collective of 9 product-focused companies in Toronto are working to fix this long standing problem. If you?re interested in Product and Tech, and want to work with the best start-ups out there, this program is for you!
15. GAP Rotational Management Program
This last one is a little different. It?s a highly competitive, rotational, training program within a large corporation that exposes participants to principal areas of the business. PS: You also get free clothing 🙂
More Product Management Jobs
Here?s a list of companies that may not offer APM or RPM programs, but do have roles suitable for recent graduates or folks early in their career that are interested in product management:
- Square
- Yelp
- Walmart
- Yammer
- Amazon
- eBay
- Redfin
- Asana
- Etsy
- Visa
- Atlassian
- Netapp
- HubSpot
- Box
Keep an eye on their careers pages for associate product manager jobs and other opportunities!
Now for the Bonus section (Q3 2019)
3 new entrants to this list:
Salesforce APM Program
In this 2 year program, you?ll have direct ownership of products on 3 different rotations, a personal network of mentors to help build your career, fun events with fellow APMs and more. There?s also a 12 week summer internship program. Cohort sizes are small, so the groups are tight-knit and have a lot of personal interaction with senior executives, including their Chief Product Officer, Bret Taylor. Bret was one of the original Google APMs, wanted to bring APMs to Salesforce, and is heavily involved in the program. Applications for 2020 interns and full-time APMs are being accepted now!
Schmidt Futures
Last on the list but one of my absolute favorites ? focuses on social impact tech, definitely give it a shot.
Schmidt Futures (founded by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt) is a venture facility for public benefit. The team focuses on advancing society through technology, inspiring breakthroughs in scientific knowledge, and promoting shared prosperity. Right now, they?re recruiting a new cohort of Associate Product Managers based in New York City.
Modeled after the Google program of the same name, their APM program connects top graduating seniors/recent grads with individuals in government, technology, philanthropy, and academia that are using advanced computing to solve major societal challenges. Applications close on October 1st and will be reviewed on a rolling basis. For questions, you can email [email protected] 🙂
LiveRamp TERM Program
LiveRamp?s TERM Program offers new grads & recent graduates of all backgrounds (no STEM degree required!) an opportunity to be part of a hyper-growth identity company. Previous TERMs have designed and launched new products, managed the merger of acquired companies into LiveRamp, researched market opportunities in new industries, and more. TERM cohorts are close-knit, filled with development workshops and social events. The program is designed to be a more attractive alternative to traditional graduate paths in management consulting and finance.
Happy to connect you to the team in case you have any questions 🙂
Hope you found this list useful. Do let me know if you find any others that I could add to this list! In case you?re looking for resources on how to prepare for these or want to discuss anything remotely related to the interesting world of tech-products, feel free to reach out – cheers and goodluck! 🙂
yourproductguy
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