Software Product Management Certificate Receives Award

The University of Washington’s Certificate in Software Product Management was the recipient of the Outstanding Non-Credit Program Award at the recent 2020 University of Professional and Continuing Education Association (UPCEA) West Region Conference.

“The recognition by UPCEA West is an attestation of the quality of our program, our stellar instructional team and its value in building our students’ professional portfolio,” said Lalitha Subramanian, an assistant director of Continuum College’s Academic Programs. 

“The recognition by UPCEA West is an attestation of the quality of our program, our stellar instructional team and its value in building our students’ professional portfolio.”

 — Lalitha Subramanian, assistant director of Academic Programs

Designed for tech industry professionals who want to enter or advance in product management, the Software Product Management certificate embodies key concepts of the award: demonstrating a contribution to the field of continuing or online education.

“Software product management, like most other business skills, is a practical skill,” said Pawan Gupta, program instructor and software development manager at Amazon. “As instructors of this program, we strive to provide our students with not just concepts, but also the knowledge of how to apply them in the everyday business environment.”

According to 2019 certificate graduate, Nicole Jendro, the program was very useful, giving her the knowledge and experience for a successful transition into a product management role.

“I’ve now been a product manager for an amazing product delivery team at Geocaching HQ for a little over a year and am proud of one of my recent successes,” explains Jendro. “I was the lead product manager for a project where I worked with more than five teams, including three other delivery teams. And we successfully launched a cross-platform release.”

A tremendous amount of growth over the past couple of years, combined with the award, offers a bright outlook for the program. “Our certificate program is ideally positioned to both train and coach students to quench the thirst for good software product managers globally,” said Subramanian.