Depends on the org. I went from sales to PM, so I had to learn the engineering knowledge to the point that I could properly scope and spec things. I have been building websites since I was 10 so I was not green by any measure, but up until this point I was employed as a salesperson.<p>I think if you are coming from the engineering side, you might want to read up on sales. If the PM as mini-CEO of a product holds true where you work, the CEO mainly sets direction (for the product) and develops the business.<p>So sales (as in talking to customers) is really the part you may have less experience with. I think that exposure to real, imperfect, angry, complaining, confused, biased, excited customers is a good education in this. Your goal really is to interface the market/customers with the product/operations.
I'm a full stack that is now 'Product Engineer', so both PM and SE. My company moved me to that position from just an SE because I was having major disagreements with how Product Management was being handled in our team.<p>At first they put me to full time PM, then I wanted to get back to doing some code. I felt a bit lost as a full time PM at first, but after about 6 months, I'm getting used to it and suspect in the next year I'll be moving away from code as our product grows.<p>If you have the opportunity to do PM work in your current team, I highly recommend it.<p>So, would I hire a SE as a PM, I'd more likely hire the SE as a PE, or SE and try transitioning them if that is what they want. No guarantee they'd be good at it though.
Yes, there are a few things that you can do to help though. When I did this, I volunteered to be part of acquisition teams to work on PM-like activities and I also volunteered to take on some PM tasks from the PM team.<p>Assuming you are in ENG today, can you take on some work from the PM team? The easiest way is to do this is in your own organization.<p>You can take the pragmatic marketing certificate, but it is kinda expensive. I would also read all of the free info on the web.<p>Good luck!