What's a typical product manager career path?

There is a fork in the PM career path road: one is becoming a people manager, the other becoming an expert in a deep thinking product area sans managing a team.  My recommendation is to figure out which one is right for you. Many folks want to jump into management simply because they think this is the only way to grow, make more $$$ and so on. That is not true. Big and small orgs I have been a part of value senior individual contributors that are passionate about their individual craft. Speak wi ...Read More

This is somehow the simplest and toughest question on here 🙂 Your typical PM career path can look like: PM: Responsible for a KPI or set of features Senior PM: Responsible for a product area end-to-end Staff/Group PM: Responsible for a product end-to-end Principal/Director PM: Responsible for a business unit VP PM: Responsible for multiple business units CPO: Responsible for the entire Product org ...but I personally don't find that framing helpful because it varies so much from company-to-compa ...Read More

This is a very interesting question and one that I keep touching upon on almost all career conversations with my teams & mentees. There is no one typical career path for PMs, which can be both liberating and challenging at the same time! It's liberating since PMs have the chance to shape their careers to what they would like it to be, playing to their strengths and having a fulfilling life & career. It's challenging since every industry and many firms in the same industry have different ...Read More

There are different paths that each product manager takes, but the common ones I've seen are: 1. Joining a tech company as an Associate PM or an intern straight from college. For college grads, I suggest starting by connecting with other product managers (e.g. via LinkedIn) to better understand what we do. There are great books available on this topic as well -- "Cracking PM Interview" is among my favorites. I also created a series of videos explaining tech jobs and what do I do in more detail - ...Read More

I don't think there is a typical product career path! Many of the PMs I have worked with or hired have changed careers and moved around in different roles. I see people enter from college with software engineering backgrounds, or experienced senior people moving from other software crafts such as design, engineering and project management into product management. For example, I have former startup founders and former DevOps engineers on my current PM team. If there is something typical about all ...Read More

In the field of product management, there isn't really a "typical" career path. Product management is highly flexible. Some product managers may transition into related fields like marketing, sales, or even corporate strategy. Others might find their niche in a particular stage of product management and choose to specialize rather than move up the ladder. The path can also be nonlinear, with professionals moving between companies, roles, and industries based on opportunities and personal interes ...Read More

The answer depends on the size of the company. But if I generalize, if you are a new grad or new to the function, then your first job would be Product Manager. Then, depending on whether you are in B2C or B2B companies, there are different levels with slightly different titles. In B2B tech companies, the titles progress from PM to senior PM, Principal, and Director. As a Director, you typically become a people manager responsible for an area of the business. Some companies might even have titles ...Read More