What are the different types of product managers, and how do you figure out which type you're the best fit for?

A super common question! Traditionally the term "product manager" can often mean different things depending on the size of the company, the product's stage, and sometimes the overall market segment. I often times bucket them into these core groups: Technical Product Managers (TPM):These PMs work closely with engineering teams on more technical products, thinks like API driven products where the end "customer" is technical in nature. For these roles, you will need a deeper level of technical expe ...Read More

Different types of PMs - Core Product Managers, Platform Product Managers, Infra/Internal Product Managers, Data Product Managers, Growth Product Managers, AI Product Managers Core Product Management Building products, features, enhancements directly for the company’s external target consumer/business Platform Product Management Building products, tooling, systems that are leveraged/shared by a handful of core product management teams to prevent service duplication - ie billing systems, authenti ...Read More

There are different ways you can think about it, but I like to think about PMs as those that build new products (0-->1) and PMs that come in to manage an existing product (1-->N). 0-->1: Product Managers who build a new product or service from scratch often need to innovate, which means building something that no one else has built before.  1-->N: Joining a company to own an existing product, also means that product-market fit has been already established. As a PM you will focus on s ...Read More

Some key types I have encountered are: UX/UI product managers: These product managers are responsible for the user experience and user interface of a product.  Platform product managers: These product managers focus on building and managing platforms that enable other products or services to be built on top of them. Growth product managers: These product managers focus on driving growth and increasing user acquisition, retention, and engagement.  Technical product managers: managing the developm ...Read More

Just like there are a million ways to segment the market, there are also a million ways to segment PMs. :-) Here are a couple of ways I like to think about PM segmentation: B2B versus B2C. This is probably the most obvious. In B2B, there is a smaller pool of customers, so you truly get to know them and build long-term relationships with individuals at those customers. The drawback is that you're always fighting against the "whales" (folks paying you a lot of money) skewing your roadmap in their ...Read More