Product Career Ladder
While the concept of product management has been around in different varieties for quite a while, the specifics that help to define a career in product are still unfolding and being refined across many industries. One of the areas that is still being firmed up is the product management career path (or ‘career ladder’).
The career ladder associated with product management can be somewhat tricky to define, largely because of the nature of the role. Product roles require a lot of collaboration across teams, organizational influence, and strategy development, all potentially without any direct reports. Further, the title of ‘product manager’ actually has the word ‘manager’ in it which could imply managing a team of direct reports, but as we have seen this may not be the case. Lastly, we’ve all heard that the product manager is often described as the ‘CEO of the Product’. The ‘CEO of the Product’ label typically does not mean that the product manager owns the full complement of responsibilities most commonly associated with a CEO, but rather intends to describe the fact that the product manager drives the vision, strategy, and roadmap for the product, while helping to ensure the ‘end-to-end success’ of the overall product.
Product Manager Individual Contributor Career Path
The individual contributor path for a product manager generally follows something similar to the following. Please note that this is not meant to be an exhaustive list of responsibilities but rather intends to serve as an overview of each level of the individual product contributor.
Product Manager Individual Contributor Career Path
The individual contributor career path shown above may be broken down into additional levels in each organization. The common number of individual contributor levels is somewhere between 5 to 8 levels which most likely means that the ‘Product Manager’ and ‘Senior Product Manager’ areas above are further broken down. The general takeaway from the above path is that as the product manager progresses along their career, they will move from tightly scoped products to more and more greenfield products, where the level of autonomy increases as well as the scope of influence they have over a product area.
Product Manager Managerial Career Path
When looking at the managerial path for product, the goals change slightly from having direct day-to-day impact on building a product to shifting that impact towards developing product professionals and driving higher level strategy for the organization. As with the individual contributor path, the following managerial career ladder for product is meant to serve as a general overview to describe each level.
Product Manager Managerial Career Path
The Group Product Manager title shown above may also be referred to as a ‘Product Lead’ or ‘Manager, Product’ or something else entirely. The primary idea here is that this person is the first level of people management in the product organization and typically finds themselves managing junior reports as they refine their skills in people management. Additionally, the ‘Group Product Manager’ may sometimes fill the role of a ‘player-coach’ where they are wearing the hat of a senior individual contributor and also serving as a people manager at the same time.
When considering the ‘Director’ role, there are some companies that skip the ‘Group Product Manager’ role altogether and go straight to ‘Director, Product Management’. If this occurs, it typically means that the roles and responsibilities for the ‘Group’ and ‘Director’ levels shown above are merged.
The final level shown in the managerial path shows three potential titles (namely, Chief Product Officer or Vice President of Product or Head of Product). The reason behind the multiple titles is because this title may vary depending on the company or industry or the product maturity of the organization. Ideally, this top level exists in all product organizations as it indicates that the organization desires to be ‘product-led’ and truly believes in the role of product.
As is the case with the individual career path, the managerial path shown above may be broken down into more levels. If this is the case, then titles like ‘Associate Director’ and ‘Senior Director’ are commonly used. When this happens, the roles and responsibilities are more granular from level to level.
Wrap Up
The above career ladder for product professionals aims to provide a general understanding of the types of roles and responsibilities associated with each step along the journey. Product Managers are now able to follow clearly defined paths with growth opportunities and goals identified at every level. It is a great time to be in Product!