🎧 How to Tell If You’re Growing as a PM (regardless of your job title)
Confused by all the different Product Manager titles? 😵💫
Not sure which job titles to target in your job search? 😩
Unclear on how to get a promotion to Sr. Product Manager or higher? 😰
This episode is for you! 🫶
I decode everything there is to know about growth in your product management career, regardless of job title!
What is standard in product management job titles as of today
Why titles are so often misused or inconsistent across companies
What to do if you think your title is inflated or inaccurate
Key differences between individual contributor and manager roles
How to evaluate your role and responsibilities to figure out your path to growth (using the 5 step process that I use with all of my clients!)
Ready to SHINE in your Product Management career? ✨
Learn more about my SHINE 1:1 coaching program for Product Managers seeking promotion and greater leadership impact. It's designed to help you grow your confidence, stand out as a strategic thinker, and take the next big step in your career.
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Jess Sherlock (00:02.264)
Hey everyone, today I wanna talk about what it means to grow in your product management career. It can be really easy to get overly focused on titles, but the reality is that titles are still very often misused or inconsistent from company to company. And perhaps you're lucky enough to work at a company that has invested in creating clear career ladders and you understand how to advance in your role, but guess what? Most of the PMs I work with have zero documentation from their company.
on the difference between expectations from let's say a senior PM to a senior PM or higher. Sometimes they have a rough idea, they've maybe heard about what it takes to grow from other resources or maybe they guess based on other people in their company who have a higher role. But unfortunately, most of the time, the path to a promotion and product can feel confusing or elusive. So I wanna take some time today to walk you through a little 101 on product manager career ladders.
and what it actually means to advance and grow in your product career in plain English. And so it's important to note here, even if your company has a career ladder, which sometimes happens when I'm working with new clients, it may or may not be in alignment with market standards or other expectations of companies that you might want to work at in the future. So my goal is always to arm you with an objective rundown of what the different levels and product management roles actually mean.
so that you can do two things. I want you to be able to clearly understand where you should focus in order to get the next level, meaning where are you right now, what should you really be doing to get to the next level in your current role? And number two, I also want you to have a sense of what's going to be expected from you in the broader product market, because the measuring stick at your current company might be quite different than the measuring stick out in the broader market. And so I want you to understand
what's expected in both so that you can be successful in this current. So I want you to be able to understand what's important.
Jess Sherlock (02:10.988)
And it is important to note that even if your company has a career ladder, it may or may not be in alignment with market standards or other expectations of companies that you might work with in the future.
Jess Sherlock (02:25.036)
And it's important to note that even if your company has a career ladder, it may or may not be in alignment with market standards at
Jess Sherlock (02:37.89)
And it's important to note, even if your company has a career ladder, it may or may not be in alignment with market standards and the expectations that other companies may have that you may want to work at in the future. So my goal here today is to arm you with an objective rundown of what the different levels in product management actually mean so that you can do two things. Number one, I want you to be able to clearly understand where you are now and where you should focus in order to get to the next level.
but I also want you to have a sense of what's expected in the broader job market because it might be quite different than the measuring stick that your company is using.
Jess Sherlock (03:19.798)
Okay, first things first, I wanna talk about IC versus manager roles. So these are individual contributor versus manager roles. Most companies are going to have an individual contributor path that is separate from a people manager path. So this means that to grow as a product manager, you don't necessarily have to move into people leadership. There are actually quite senior level IC PMs.
For example, who are being paid just as much in like VP roles at large tech companies. And so when we think about IC or individual contributor roles, these are the titles that you've probably heard many times before. Associate PM, usually going to a PM, then to senior PM, and then to something like a principal or a staff PM, okay? So those...
Individual contributor titles are going up in seniority from associate PM, PM, senior, up to principal or staff. Now, manager tracks typically start around the senior PM level, and they usually go something like this. Group product manager to director of product management to maybe senior director of product management up to VP, maybe senior VP, and eventually CPO.
Now those manager tracks, like I said, typically do require people management, but we'll talk about how sometimes these titles are misused. in a situation where these titles are being used appropriately, the differentiator there is going to be whether you are an individual contributor, meaning you are just building great products, working with a dev team, doing good discovery and getting things launched, or you're a people manager where you might have some backlog responsibility.
but the grand majority of your day is gonna be dedicated to people management, higher level strategy, and usually coordination across a number of teams, and of course, people management of any number of individual contributor PMs.
Jess Sherlock (05:24.14)
All right, and now let's talk about the leveling itself. So we've all seen these titles, they're familiar titles, but here's the thing I want you to know, is that every company is a little bit different with the specific titles that they decide to use and how they actually level people inside those titles. So some examples are, some companies do not have associate PM roles. Some companies have rotational APM programs, like Facebook is really well known for this, for example, where
they will actually have you apply to it, kind of like a paid internship, and you'll be brought in as a junior level PM with an associate PM title, and those can be very competitive programs. Other companies just have associate PM titles that they hire for like any other role. Now, the title product manager can actually be used to mean a broad swath of levels. So for example, a company like Stripe,
actually doesn't even use the titles senior or staff or principal. They use PM for every PM at every level. This is to avoid title inflation. Other companies will commonly use like a L number system. So you might've heard someone say, I'm a L4 PM or I'm an L5 PM. Those are typical leveling systems or even like a sub-leveling system that's used at big tech companies.
So like I said, the example being a product manager saying that they're an L4 or an L5 and a senior PM maybe saying they're an L6. Now, while big tech companies can be quite sophisticated in their leveling framework, some companies on the other hand are still calling their PMs product owners. Now you might be wondering, Jess, how do you know this? Well,
Just a couple months ago, I had a CPO from a large insurance brokerage firm here in the local Denver area reach out to me for referrals for an open role on their team. They said, hey, I'm gonna be hiring. Do you know anyone that I might talk to? And I took a look at the job description and you know what? The title was PO, product owner, but the job description was very clearly for a product manager for their web portal product. So there you have it.
Jess Sherlock (07:36.302)
Now, why was this the case? I mean, I certainly gave feedback to that CPO and I said, hey, you you may consider putting the title as product manager so you can make sure that you get really solid candidates. And honestly, from an accuracy standpoint, this really is a product manager role. But unfortunately, in this case, it was just a situation where kind of internal politics and some lagging product leadership just meant that they were working to get it changed, but it was going to take some time.
Jess Sherlock (08:14.592)
Okay, so we've talked through now the difference between individual contributor PMs and people managers. Now let's talk about title inflation because it would be one thing if all of us agreed completely upon what it meant to be a PM or a senior PM or principal PM, but unfortunately these titles are not always used in the same way. So one of the things that is common for me to see is that PM titles are inflated at startups
or at more traditional companies when compared to big tech companies. So let me give you some real examples. I once had a client who worked for a fintech startup and they had the title Principal PM. But as we got to looking at their experience, we realized their title was a little inflated. They were in fact the most senior person in their product organization. And yes, they had nine years of product experience.
but they were not owning the long-term product strategy simply due to the fact that there was significant involvement of the leadership team and the founding team still at that company. So in that instance, when I evaluated that person's roles and responsibility against their title, I had to share the unfortunate news that that title might actually be a little inflated if that person were to go out on the job market for a job search. So let me give you an example, right?
Because this person was not actually owning long-term product strategy, they would not have met the expectations for a principal PM role at Amazon, for example, where, and I quote from the job description of an actual principal PM job posting at Amazon right now that I found right before recording this episode, it says, and I quote, you're expected to develop and execute a comprehensive multi-year product strategy. Okay, now.
Is that person or was that person capable of that? Sure, but had they had proven experience doing that? No, unfortunately not, because in their particular organization, in the context of their stakeholder group, that was simply just not an opportunity that was available to them. Now, the company wasn't trying to set this person up for failure, but it was an appropriate representation of that person's seniority in the context of their specific company.
Jess Sherlock (10:35.522)
but you can see how this might make it challenging to go out on a job search with an inflated title. So we'll talk more about that in a moment. Because I want to give you another example. another time I had a client that had a title of Director of Product, and this was at a popular marketing technology company, this person, and by the way, every other PM who was at an equal level, had the director title. Now here's the problem. They didn't have any direct reports.
and they spent the majority of their time running a backlog, doing discovery, and working on their product area. So again, a director level title in general is expected to be managing people. But don't just take my word for it. Let me give you an example. This person, for example, would not have met the expectations for a director of product role at Capital One. And I pulled this from a real Capital One director of product job posting just a few minutes here before recording the podcast.
And in that role, it would have been expected that they coach and develop a team of product managers by fostering a culture of innovation, collaboration, and continuous improvement. So there you have it, a director level role with the expectation that you would not only coach or mentor, but you would actually manage and develop a team of people. It didn't say in the job description how many people, but usually, you know, three to seven maybe would be a good guess.
So given those two examples, the more accurate title for each of those individuals would have probably been senior PM. So you might be thinking, isn't the title inflation actually a good thing? Isn't that kind of a happy accident that this person ended up with a title that was a little bit more impressive or beyond what they were actually doing? Not necessarily, and that's for a couple of reasons. If you apply, maybe we'll go lay down.
Jess Sherlock (12:37.886)
Now you might be thinking, okay, Jess, isn't an inflated title actually a good thing? Like, isn't it a happy accident that you ended up with this title that's above and beyond what you're doing? Wouldn't that set you up for success? Well, no, not necessarily, and for a couple of reasons. if you, first of all, apply to jobs kind of strictly based on your current title. So let's say that individual with a principal PM role decided, hey, I'm a principal PM, I'll go ahead and apply to any principal PM jobs.
you might not make it very far. First of all, your resume, if you're writing it based on the accomplishments and ownership that you actually have, it's just going to be a mismatch, right? So you're not gonna be able to speak about that level of strategic ownership, and you won't be able to talk about that level of impact on the product and ownership on the product that that hiring manager or recruiter would expect to see.
Now, maybe you'll get lucky. They'll see the title. They won't necessarily pick up on that gap when they read your bullet points. But I can promise you, when you get in the interview, they will pick up very quickly on those gaps. And they will be very clear that you weren't actually operating at the level they would have expected for that title, especially with that director of product title that I mentioned before.
You wouldn't get far if you weren't able to speak about your experience actually managing and developing a team of product managers. So all the more reason to understand what your role and responsibilities actually mean for your level of work and the appropriate title so that when you go out on the job search, you're speaking about your experience in the right way and you're also targeting the roles that are going to be the best fit for you.
Jess Sherlock (14:26.284)
Okay, now on the flip side, I have had clients whose titles have far underrepresented the level of contribution that they were having. So I've had APMs, associate PMs, who were clearly working at the level of a PM. They were doing far more than just executing on a solution that they were given by someone else. I have had PMs who are operating at the level of senior.
They're working with autonomy, they're working on extremely complex, highly nuanced products that maybe had a high value or high risk to the organization. And one time I even had a PM who was responsible for the entire product organization. They were hiring, they were doing long-term strategy, they were even showing up to report out to the investors of the business. She was wildly underpaid.
she was wildly underrepresented in the title. Her title was PM. Her title should have been probably at the very least head of product, but problematic nonetheless. And so it's really important to me that you have a clear understanding of not only what your title is as it's been given to you by your employer, but you understand how that set of roles or...
Jess Sherlock (15:42.542)
So it's important to me that you understand how your actual role and responsibilities map to the titles and levels that are out in the broader job market so that you can go after the right types of roles, but you can also focus on growing in the right way. Because if your company has a different measuring stick than the measuring stick of other companies you might want to work for in the future, you run the risk of not developing the right skills in the meantime to be a competitive candidate down the road.
Jess Sherlock (16:23.266)
All right, so hopefully by now you understand why I am not a fan of measuring the level of a PM by title alone. Here's what I look at instead. There are actually five components that I look at when I'm doing a career calibration for folks that I am coaching. Number one, I'm looking at the amount of a product or products that you have under your direct ownership. Number two, I'm looking for the level of responsibility that you have for those products.
Number three, I'm looking at the timeframe for which you are planning out work. Number four, I'm taking into consideration the size of the company and the stage of the product. And number five, perhaps most importantly, the maturity that you show in your craft. So let's run through each of these and I'll tell you a little bit more about what I'm looking for and what tends to illustrate to me what level you're operating at. So,
You may wanna grab a little note card and keep track at home and kind of score yourself as we talk through this because at the end I am going to ask you how you might wanna take action on this and where you think you need to focus.
All right, number one, let's start with the amount of the product that you own. So let's use Yelp, like the Yelp mobile app as an example. So typically a more junior PM would own a small part of that product. Maybe they own a small set of features, something like the ratings or the reviews on a company. Now a mid-level PM would own more of an area of the product, something like...
something like search and results pages for companies. Whereas a more senior PM might oversee the entire product. And then if you were a product leader, like a director or above, you might actually oversee the entire portfolio of products. So in other words, with Yelp, this might be the entire customer facing product as well as maybe the business facing product. I haven't used it, but I believe there's a business facing product where you can kind of like...
Jess Sherlock (18:31.214)
manage your reviews and manage your company information. So that's what I'm referring to there.
Okay, so you can see how the more senior you become, the more responsibility that you have for the product. The more of the product is under your ownership.
So number two, let's look at.
All right, so number two, I want to also look at the level of responsibility that you actually have for the products that you own. So a more junior PM might only be responsible for executing on a feature that was already validated and refined and defined by a more senior PM. Whereas a more mid-level PM might actually identify a problem on their own, validate it, and then actually create the requirements.
for the solution, get it built, launched, and delivered.
Jess Sherlock (19:26.326)
A more senior PM might be responsible for setting goals and metrics for their product. They may even contribute to the strategy for their product area.
And finally, a product leader would certainly be setting the strategy for their products and they're likely to be thinking further out about the product. Which brings us to point number three. Generally speaking, the more senior you are as a product manager, the further out you are thinking about and planning for your product. So a junior PM tends to not think much beyond this SPRINT, next SPRINT, maybe this SPRINT after that.
Mid-level PMs are definitely thinking about this quarter, maybe a little bit more. More senior PMs, I would expect to be thinking about multiple quarters at the very least. And finally, product leaders are thinking years into the future. So at least one year up to maybe even three to 10 if they're thinking about the long-term product vision for their area.
Jess Sherlock (20:30.976)
Okay, so let's move on to number four. With all these other areas in mind, the context of your company...
Jess Sherlock (20:40.898)
All right, let's move on to number four. With all these other areas in mind, we wanna look at the context of your specific company size and the product stage. These are extremely important considerations to factor in and let me tell you why. I was the CPO at my edtech startup. It was called Carousel, it was used in a bunch of Colorado school districts. We even raised a few hundred thousand dollars worth of angel and pre-seed funding.
But let's be real, okay? I was not managing anyone. I guess I did have a couple of folks on the team, but like we were a team of four. We were operating very lean. We had very short planning cycles. I was doing everything. I mean, I architected our data structures and the product. I was overseeing engineering. I was QA. I was part of the sales team. That role as a CPO was very different, right? Than if I were the CPO at
Google or even the CPO at Yelp like we talked about in the previous example. So if it's a very small early team, you probably own more. And if you are at a big established company with a mature product, you probably own less. So typically I've found that the larger the organization and the more established the product, the less likely it is that your title is going to be inflated.
Jess Sherlock (22:03.584)
Okay, final thing that I look at, and this might actually be the most important thing, and this is the maturity that you exhibit in your product management craft. So there's a certain je ne sais quoi that you see in more senior product folks. I often equate it to how you sort of interpret or intuit the skills of a tradesperson who might be doing work on your house or your apartment.
a more senior plumber, let's say, might have this air of confidence about them. Like, they've seen a situation like this before. They can handle it. They know what to expect, right? They're not looking at this like, leaky bathroom, kind of freaking out and panicking, right? And it's not about specifically how many toilets they've fixed in their career, but it's about the fact that they've done work like this for years in a lot of different types of houses, with a lot of different types of
problems. And so you can have all the experience in the world, but if you cannot carry yourself with this cool confidence, a level head, and a vibe that makes people want to follow your lead and trust you, then you're not senior. And skills play a role, but honestly, skills are the easiest thing to teach typically.
and the skills that you're going to need will change over the course of your career and they will change depending on the context of the team around you. So let's talk about this. The simplest way that I like to think about it is that you build first a strong foundation in execution and customer insight. Even the most junior PMs at the very least need to be able to identify a customer problem, solve it, get it built and get that thing launched.
If you are just a project manager, you're not even hitting the bare bones of doing product management. So if you're just executing on something someone handed you, you're just a project manager. To be even a junior PM, you need to understand or be driving your solutions at solving a problem. And as you become more senior, your ability to influence people on your team and throughout the organization has to grow.
Jess Sherlock (24:20.13)
You need to be able to manage up effectively with more senior leaders. You need to be able to manage your stakeholders. You need to be able to even lead and manage your own team, your AgilePod that you're working on. Even when you aren't anyone's direct manager, they follow you because they believe in your ideas. They believe the discovery work that you've done. You've made a compelling case for the work that we should do on the product, and they want to follow you.
And the skills that come in later are business strategy, being able to set a longer term product vision, getting buy-in from stakeholders and tailoring your message for those higher level executives, and maybe even owning a P &L. But the thing, like I said, that I want to point out is that context is key here too. The skills that a PM must have will also vary and be influenced by the team that they have around them.
The classic example that I like to use is if you do not have a, let's say a product designer, you may need to step in more on putting together wireframes. If you don't have a dedicated researcher, you might need to step in more on customer discovery or competitive research. And so often, product managers, the skills that they need to be successful in a certain company will be highly dictated by the team they have around them.
And at one company, you might need to hone a set of skills that you don't need at another company. I can remember recently someone getting a new role and it turned out that they were actually going to have a dedicated data scientist for their team. Imagine their relief to know that they had tried to build their data skills, but it wasn't really their favorite thing to do. And now in their new role, they were gonna have a dedicated data person? They were so excited. And so just know that
There's a certain amount of foundational skills you need, but as you move role to role, there may be different skills that you have to flex more or less depending on the team around you. And I should mention, if you're a very small team, it's likely that you're gonna have to flex your team leadership and your stakeholder management skills even more as like a junior PM, just because there's not as many people to help support you in that. Smaller teams tend to require that you wear more hats.
Jess Sherlock (26:41.494)
earlier companies and startups typically require that you wear more hats. And so what I'm looking at is I'm evaluating somebody's seniority is not only, it's not like a single set of skills that I expect of every PM at every level. It's really highly influenced by all the factors that we discussed here, not the least of which is the size of your company, the stage of the product and the team that you have around you.
All right, so let's recap. There are five key areas that I look at to help PMs level sat and under.
Okay, let's recap. There are five key areas that I look at to help PMs level set and determine their best path to growth. So, number one, I'm looking at the amount of product or products that are under your direct ownership. Number two, I'm looking at the level of responsibility that you have for those products. Number three, I'm looking at the timeframe for which you are planning out work. Number four, I'm looking at the size of the company as well as the stage of the product.
And number five, perhaps most importantly, the level of maturity that you show in your craft. So as always, talk is great, but growth requires action. So I'll ask you, what is one takeaway that you wanna put into action from this episode? If you're not sure, I wanna give you some ideas. So first of all, is it possible that you could step up and take more ownership of more of the product?
Maybe you've been assigned an area but you notice that there isn't great coverage on another area. Maybe you notice that there's a PM that's a little overwhelmed with the amount that they are owning. Could you step up and own a little bit more even if you're not being asked to?
Jess Sherlock (28:30.102)
Maybe there's a way you could take on more responsibility for your product or product area where instead of just executing, could you start to set goals? Or instead of just setting goals, could you start informing the strategy? Could you ask your manager to join a meeting that you've never been able to join before? Could you offer to shadow conversations that you're interested in seeing? And here's something you can do as well. I recommend this a lot to folks.
Even if your company isn't asking you to, could you put some thought into what you think we should consider doing? Could you put some thought into looking at what competitors are doing or understanding market or industry trends and putting some ideas out there? Write up a proposal, even if no one's asking you to. Maybe, just maybe, they'll buy into it. Here's another idea.
Maybe you could start thinking more about the future of your product. I know in the busy, busy days of just keeping up with Slack messages and getting the day-to-day work done, it can be hard to zoom out and think about what's coming, but if you've only been thinking about this SPRINT and next SPRINT, maybe you could start thinking about next quarter. If you've only been thinking about this quarter and next quarter, maybe you could start thinking about next year. And again, even if your company isn't asking you for this,
No one's stopping you. Why don't you carve out an hour to just sit down and say, you know what, if it was up to me, if I had the opportunity to propose what we should do instead, or I think I have a better or different idea than what my leadership has chosen to focus on, what would you recommend? Would it be the same as what your leadership has chosen to work on? If not, not only is that a good thought exercise, it's just great.
practice for your brain to be challenged in that way, but what if you make a recommendation that people like? Wouldn't that be cool? Wouldn't it be cool if this idea actually is considered and maybe even built into the product? It's not magic what ends up in products. It's good ideas that have a basis in data. So if you have an idea that you want to put forth,
Jess Sherlock (30:50.12)
it forth and operate at a level that makes you a little uncomfortable, growth will happen.
All right, and here's one more idea for you. Do you need to work on your vibe? Honestly, do your stakeholders trust you? Do they come to you and seem excited and comfortable giving you ideas? Or do they seem a little standoffish? Do they naturally follow your lead? Or does it feel like you have to work really, really hard to get people to follow your suggestions? If you notice that your vibe might be off,
you might need some help showing up as more of a leader. It's not necessarily the PM with the best skills that advances. A lot of being a successful product leader is in how you show up and how much people trust you. So really take a moment to reflect and think about the last few interactions you've had. Think about the amount of friction maybe you have. And if that doesn't feel productive and doesn't feel like what something you're proud of,
then that might be where you need to put the work in.
All right, so I hope this was helpful in understanding why I don't think titles tell you everything that you need to know to understand what growth really looks like as a product manager. Title is a part of the equation, but there are other parts of the equation that I think are extremely important to give you a sense of really where you are in your product career and what you might need to work on in order to grow further. So if you need some help, let's say you're in a job search right now and you're not getting traction, maybe you...
Jess Sherlock (32:32.366)
All right, so if you're in a job search right now and you're not getting traction and you need help figuring out which roles might be right for you, you may wanna check out my SPRINT program. We can help make sure that your job search strategy is working for you, because it could be that you're applying to the wrong roles given your actual experience. Or if you're stuck in your current role and you know you need to grow and even with all this information here, you're not sure, or you want some help,
you should check out my SHINE program and book time.
Jess Sherlock (33:07.03)
If you're feeling stuck in your current role and you know that you want to grow but you're not sure how, even with all this information that I shared today, you may want to check out.
Jess Sherlock (33:19.52)
If you're feeling stuck in your current role and you know you need to grow but you're not sure how, even with all the information I shared today, I definitely recommend that you check out my SHINE program. You can find that at jesssherlock.com slash SHINE. That's three S's, J-E-S-S-S-H-E-R-L-O-C-K dot com slash SHINE. And you can book time on my calendar so we can chat and I'd love to hear from you.
Jess Sherlock (33:47.126)
If you're in a job search right now and you're not getting traction, you may need help figuring out which roles are right for you to apply to. If that's the case, you can check out my SPRINT program at jesssherlock.com slash SPRINT That's three S's, J-E-S-S-S-H-E-R-L-O-C-K dot com slash SPRINT. And we can make sure that your job strategy.
And we can make sure that your job search strategy is actually working for you, because it could be that you're just applying to the wrong titles for your experience.
Jess Sherlock (34:20.77)
Thanks again for listening to another episode of AFTER THE CERT. If you found this episode helpful, please subscribe to make sure you get notified as soon as a new episode drops. And as always, if you have a product management career question or a topic suggestion for a future episode, connect with me on LinkedIn, send me a DM, and I just might cover it in a future episode. I'll see you next time on AFTER THE CERT
