What tools must one be proficient in to excel as a technical product marketer?

This is very dependent on the solution you’ll be selling. But I’ll share that my “screener” question for my last TPMM hire was, “When was the last time you did anything on the command line, and why?”

That question tends to reveal whether the candidate has the chops and (and interest!) in manipulating things at a foundational level—at bending systems to their will (ok that’s a bit dramatic) to build the right solution, not just the convenient one.

A technical product marketer should, first and foremost, have the same level of hands-on technical acumen with the product (and others in the category) as roles like Sales Engineering, Product Management, Developer Advocate and, in some cases, even Engineer. Some of the best technical PMMs I've worked with were former practitioners/customers with more real-life experience than the PMs curating the backlog. So from a tools/skills standpoint, deep technical expertise is at the heart of what you know. So if you weren't a user or practitioner before becoming a Technical PMM, invest heavily in the skill building through tutorials, certifications and just spending time doing things in the product. Which dovetails into the other major tools/skills are for a Technical PMM: the "show" part of the job. To me, a regular PMM tells the product story through words & visuals while the Technical PMM tells the product story through the product itself. That's the "marketing" part of it all. There's real art and storytelling prowess to building a compelling, durable demo that lots of people can both give and understand. Just like messaging is job one for PMMs, demos is often job one for Technical PMMs so spend a lot of time critically evaluating other demos. Pour through YouTube, GitHub and places like StackOverflow and Reddit to find technical demos than pick them apart to find out what works, what doesn't and why. Then build your own demos based on the messaging and value props the PMMs built until you have a companion piece that can bring the "so what?" to life for customers.