Sharing some reflections on this:
Product is not a function with a large hierarchy / multiple levels in the ladder. Managerial responsibility comes in very late in the product career and the spans are typically small (relative to other functions like engineering, sales, operations). This also means a steeper funnel to the top and only a handful VP Product roles in the industry.
Product is centered around technology and digital consumer trends, both of which are fast changing. This requires constant unlearning and relearning. But more critically, this also means that previous knowledge/experience hits a plateau on marginal value beyond a basic threshold (where you have developed some essential product semse and skills).
Product managers are also much higher-paid vs other functional peers, at comparable years of experience. This means that a PM gets to a very high salary (say, 1+ crore) by the age of 40 (15-20y into their career). Tech functions in non-tech companies (like FMCG, banking) cannot offer that kind of pay, meaning salary growth beyond a point is limited to tech-first companies / limiting addressable market for lateral moves.
All of these considererd, how should PMs think about the longevity of their careers? Unlike traditional roles, this does not seem like a "retire at 60" job. What would be the realistic age one should plan for, at which career growth and salary growth will stagnate? What are ways in which a 80%ile PM can extend their career (eg: also taking up engineering management or P&L responsibility or growth function etc., to increase scope)?
PS: this post is not for the top 5-10% PMs. They will always find roles at VP level etc, this is for the 50-90%ile bucket of PM talent.
Will commend you on a very well written and well articulated post.
Options for the future will be apparent at ~40. Most peak roles will be achieved between 45-50.
Possible exits:
Engineering is a sharp left turn imo. It's not an overlapping skillset at best and don't see how that is part of a PMs likely roadmap.
But, how will someone who had never worked in P&L or Marketting switch from PM?
Take a -1 role first. Don't always have to scale up.
Do you think a career as a software engineer is better than a career in product?
From a career perspective, definitely yes.
But what about longeitivity? I do believe a career as a product manager will be longer than pure software engineer What do you think?
As a field there is lesser space in top roles for Product Managers compared to Engineers.
Roughly 10 engineers for every PM.
So for every 50 engineers, there would be 5 EMs, 2 Directors and 1 VP one CTO. And there would be 5 PMs (Some of them SPMs), 1 Director / CPO only.
This scales up to proportional numbers in larger orgs and the total number of PM roles at the top in the industry are very few.
But how do you scale up from the “50 Engineer Level” given that your impact is completely individual - Doesn’t it become difficult as you get more senior?
Interesting viewpoints! Made me think about my “sixties”.
At the same time, I feel the primary reason behind these fears is - Imposter syndrome, which comes along with any generalist role. To fully understand this, we have to step back and look at the emergence of “product management” track.
PM roles are new (relatively) compared to typical engineering, revenue roles. In fact talk to any engineering leader having 30+ yrs experience, the first question they will ask is, “Why we need product management?”. If you answer “to bring customer viewpoints”. S/he would answer “But we know what our customers want and we’re already building it, why we need a PM!”.
Where’s the mismatch?
Organisation culture!
Few orgs operate in a model where leaders claim “they know-it-all”. Other leaders operate “Be curious & learn” mode. In the former type orgs, entry level PMs are more of story writers where they type the stories floating around in the company. In the latter type orgs, PMs try to juice the stories floating around and show some direction to the org. I have seen the PMs in second types of org more confident in skill sets they bring to the table.
My point is - Learning/Unlearning, finding real problems, impact visualisation, democratisation of decision making are some of the important skills which impact the longevity of a pm career.
Exit opportunities- Across different MNCs, I see well established product hierarchies (SVP, VP, Director etc). Hopefully, some of the Indian startups will grow and establish similar org frameworks to maintain, grow the product. If not product, we see some examples of product leaders (india) pivoting to revenue/growth roles, CEO/founder roles, career coach roles. We still need to wait & watch for some more years to completely understand the picture.
That’s a good pov. Thanks for sharing.
Very very well written I think PMs should realize that after a point (once you stick around till Dir or VP), it may take several years of you being in the same company or switching between companies, before your next jump
This typically is the reason PM salaries jump very quickly early on, but do plateau at a certain YoE
All considered, definitely much better paid than managers in other functions
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