From coder to Program Manager

Work on your bullshitting skills.

You need to learn how to manage people's personally disorders

Mind your career or you will become a program manager.

Think big picture and what the problems the customer has before the solution. If you are at Microsoft look for the Zen Of PM on MSW and also look at some of the resources on //pm

Communications, especially executive comms.

I've taken a similar path to you -- from being an SWE to Program Management. I really enjoy the field. To be a good program manager, you'd need to have subject matter expertise, excellent communication skills (aimed at your cross-functional working team as well as the executives), cross-functional dependency management, contingency planning, and a solid understanding of the tradeoffs between schedule (time), cost ($, headcount), and value (promised features, benefits, etc.). To be a *great* program manager, you also need to understand and manage people and their myriad biases, heuristics and politics. You need to strike the right balance between being brave and tough as well as diligent and empathetic -- so as to hold people accountable, help them when they need it, and keep positive momentum on the program. Part of the reason program management gets a bad name (as you can see from some of the comments) is because it isn't seen as a profession in itself but as a part-time, hobbyist, anybody-could-do-it role. If you are serious about program management, read the literature on technical programs and why they succeeded or failed. PMI, SSRN, etc.

One thing to note is whether you want to be a technical product or a program manager, this is a distinction if you move to Amazon. Product is more biz focused and program more tech focused.