1. Do Product Managers Need to Know SQL

As a Product Manager (PM), understanding SQL can significantly enhance your ability to make data-driven decisions. Here’s why learning SQL can make you a more effective PM:

1. Make Smarter Product Decisions

Using SQL empowers you to leverage data and quantitative analysis to make more informed product decisions. When you have direct access to data and can analyze it independently, you can base your decisions on real user behavior, trends, and performance metrics rather than assumptions.

2. Gain Autonomy and Agility

Knowing SQL allows you to conduct your own data analysis without relying on data teams or other colleagues. This increases your speed in making product decisions, as you won’t need to wait for someone else to extract and analyze data for you. This autonomy is particularly beneficial when dealing with simple data queries that don’t require the expertise of a dedicated data team.

3. It’s a Valuable Hard Skill in the Market

Having SQL skills is a highly valued technical competency for Product Managers. In today’s data-driven environment, product managers who are comfortable working with data have a more well-rounded and complete skill set. This not only helps in making better decisions but also makes you more marketable in your career.

4. Understanding Technology

SQL is often a gateway to deeper technical knowledge. Since all modern systems and applications rely on databases, understanding how they store and manage data gives you insight into how the product's backend operates. This knowledge can also improve your communication with developers and engineers, helping you better understand technical constraints and opportunities.

Industry Insights: SQL for PMs

Several leading companies, including eBay and Airbnb, actively encourage their product managers to learn SQL. These companies recognize that PMs who can navigate data independently can make faster, more informed decisions, improving the agility and success of their products.

Hands-On SQL for PMs

In this course, we aim to introduce you to SQL with practical examples so you can start using it in your role. We will work with SQLite, one of the most popular databases in the world. It’s easy to set up and widely used, especially in mobile applications like Android, making it a great starting point for learning SQL. With SQLite, you can quickly explore data and begin executing queries in just a few minutes.

Key SQL Concepts

In this lesson, we will cover:

We will also work with a sample database from GetNinjas, giving you access to real data (sanitized for privacy) so that you can practice with scenarios that closely resemble real-world applications.

Relational Databases

For this course, we will focus on relational databases, as they are the most common type used in product management. These databases store data in structured tables, where relationships between data points are clearly defined.

Each table contains columns (fields) with defined data types (e.g., integers, strings, dates). For instance, a Users table might include:

Defining Relationships Between Tables

Relational databases allow you to define relationships between tables using primary keys and foreign keys. For example, in an e-commerce system, a Users table might relate to a Orders table where each user can make multiple orders.

In this case:

SQL Commands

SQL allows you to interact with these tables and relationships through a series of commands, such as:

By learning these commands, you can independently extract valuable insights from the data and make more informed product decisions.

Benefits of Using SQL as a Product Manager

By learning SQL, you can become a more autonomous, efficient, and data-driven Product Manager, enhancing your impact on both the product and the overall business.