How to Be More Technical (Even If You Don't Have a CS Degree)

A step-by-step guide to learning basic technical concepts with AI, grasping your product's tech stack, and making technical trade-offs with confidence

This post was co-written with Colin Matthews. Colin has helped 8,500+ PMs and designers become more technical through his courses (get $175 off with this link).

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Dear subscribers,

Today, I want to talk about how you can become more technical as a PM (or in any other non-technical role).

Becoming technical helps you land top jobs, work with engineers, and build better products.

I (Peter) learned this the hard way a few years ago when I interviewed for a product role at Stripe. I admired their focus on craft, and my interviewers loved my customer obsession. But in the final round, Stripe’s CTO asked technical trade-off questions I couldn't answer well. Needless to say, I didn’t get the offer.

Don’t make my mistake — let’s cover how to:

1. Learn basic technical concepts with AI

2. Understand your product's tech stack quickly

3. Make technical trade-offs with confidence

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Learn basic technical concepts with AI

PM jobs at top tech and AI companies (e.g., Anthropic) often want technical depth.

Top tech companies want PMs who have technical depth. But don't get intimidated - you can learn these concepts without writing a single line of code.

To get started, spend a few hours learning the basics like:

1. How do APIs work?

2. How do databases work?

3. What is frontend and backend?

4. How does the internet work?

5. How do LLMs work?

Thanks to AI, you can now hire a personal tutor to learn all this for free. Simply paste the following prompt into Claude or ChatGPT with your question:

You’re a fantastic tutor. Your goal is to explain technical concepts to me (I work in tech but don’t have a technical background). I’ll share the concept with you next.

INSTRUCTIONS

Follow these steps carefully:

1. Ask me to share the technical concept I need help with.

2. Explain the concept using clear headers, short paragraphs, and numbered lists. Aim for simplicity and conciseness without sacrificing accuracy.

3. Here are some methods that you can use to explain your concept: Break down complex topics into simpler components, use simple analogies and examples, and fill gaps in my understanding. Make your explanation clear and engaging and have a conversation.

Ask me for more information if you need it. Be as clear and concise as possible.

Here’s Claude’s explanation for “How do APIs work”:

The beauty of AI is that it will answer any question you have with the utmost patience. Copy AI’s answers into a doc to review later and try to explain the concepts to someone else to better understand them yourself.

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Understand your product's tech stack quickly

Now that you know the basics, let’s cover how you can grasp your product’s tech stack.

Understanding your product's tech stack helps you make informed trade-offs at work and excel in technical job interviews.

Here’s my favorite way to understand my product’s tech stack quickly:

First, recognize that most tech stacks have three layers:

1. Client: What users interact with (e.g., a mobile app).

2. Server: Handles client requests and sends responses.

3. Database: Stores and manages all the data.

For example, when you open your X/Twitter mobile client, it sends a request to X’s servers for the latest posts. The servers retrieve the posts from X’s database and send them back to your app as a response.

Your product likely has a similar flow. To learn more:

1. Skim the technical docs for an hour. Try to follow how data flows between the client, server, and database. Don't get stuck here — just spend an hour to get familiar with the docs so you don’t sound too dumb when you…

2. Ask engineers to explain the tech stack. They’ll likely draw a beautiful diagram on a whiteboard. Follow up by asking questions like: