Product Manager Career Path: How to Grow, Thrive, and Lead in Product Management

By embarking on a product manager career path, you could help organizations produce more innovative products, benefiting both business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) customers across various industries.

Think about the number of products surrounding you at any given time—no, not “products” like you’d buy at the grocery store. Instead, a technology product is typically defined as a service, software, or hardware that serves a particular demographic. A product could be your employer’s work management tool, an app, or a cloud-based customer relationship management platform. Products may serve either businesses or private consumers. 

The product manager is the individual who oversees the development of these products, ferrying them from ideation to development to user testing and beyond. In contrast to a project manager, the product manager role is more strategic, ensuring that each product developed achieves its intended purpose.  

Product managers are in demand due to organizations’ renewed focus on customer satisfaction, adoption of Agile development and Lean methodologies, and drive to innovate in an increasingly competitive landscape. Discover what a product manager career path looks like and how you can harness the resources necessary for success in this field. 

What does a product manager do?

A product manager’s role is strategic, technical, and creative all at once. They typically oversee product strategy, the technical elements of product development, and the creative process necessary to introduce a product to its intended audience in an effective manner.  

As such, your essential, day-to-day responsibilities as a product manager, regardless of industry, may involve: 

• Launching new product projects based on the organization’s goals

• Developing a strategy for the product project 

• Guiding the teams creating the product to ensure the launch is successful

• Helping introduce the product to its intended audience or consumer base

• Overseeing analytics and data related to the product’s success 

Due to this breadth of responsibilities, a successful product manager is generally more of a generalist than a specialist, and they should possess myriad talents and abilities.

Climbing the product management ladder

Different product management jobs are available for those interested in this career path. These jobs have varying levels of seniority and education or experience requirements. Start at the job that best fits your skill set, and then continue on the career path toward more senior-level and executive positions. 

Associate product manager

Average annual base salary (US): $96,523 [1] 

An associate product manager position is an entry-level product management role. As an associate product manager, you’ll assist senior product managers with technical rather than strategic day-to-day tasks. For example, you might gather and analyze data or prepare reports.  

While working under a more experienced product manager, associate product managers can learn the ins and outs of the business, preparing them to pursue a more advanced role in the field. 

Product manager

Average annual base salary (US): $125,126 [2] 

The next step along the product manager career path is the mid-level product manager. As a generic product manager, you will often oversee the entire product lifecycle for an organization, from conception to release. You may also find more specialized product managers working on specific teams or for certain types of companies. For example, an AI product manager may specifically work on AI products, or a growth product manager may focus on growing an already-developed product. 

Senior product manager

Average annual base salary (US): $155,018 [3] 

A senior product manager position is one step up the career path from the product manager role. In this position, you’ll often have more responsibility and focus more on high-level strategic thinking instead of execution.

Product director

Average annual base salary (US): $179,527 [4] 

A more advanced leadership role is that of product director. While experience as a product manager is required for this role, prior leadership experience may not be. As a product director, you may oversee multiple small teams within the large product management team. Thus, you may also oversee the development of multiple products at once. 

Vice president of product management

Average annual base salary (US): $192,902 [5] 

A vice president of product management leads the broader product teams. As such, team-building is a large portion of this role, including hiring, training, and developing product teams. As the vice president of product management, you’ll also ensure that the product projects undertaken by the product managers and their leadership team benefit the organization’s overall goals. Typically, reaching this level on the product manager career path requires a decade or more of experience in the field. 

Chief product officer

Average annual base salary (US): $213,729 [6] 

Lastly, the executive-level chief product officer (CPO) is the highest role you can achieve in the product manager career path. As a CPO, you oversee the entire product department and align the organization’s vision with its product executions. However, not all organizations have a CPO, and in those cases, the tasks may be taken over by the next-highest product management professional, such as the vice president of product management or the product director. 

Essential skills for product managers at every level

You will need a robust mix of technical skills, including familiarity with various technologies, and workplace skills, such as solid communication skills. However far you follow the product manager career path, specific essential skills will serve you well. 

Technical skills 

The level of technical proficiency demanded by a specific product management position will depend on the organization itself and what kinds of products it is developing. If you aim to work as a product manager developing or working with certain types of technology, such as AI, you may want to achieve a base-level understanding of that technology before seeking out a product manager position so you can better oversee and collaborate with the teams actually performing the technical work. 

Regardless of your chosen industry or specialization, acquainting yourself with common product management software and similar tools could improve your job prospects. For example, knowledge of Jira can help you manage Agile workflows, while Airtable assists with database management. Other helpful technical skills include:

• Conduct market research and analysis 

• Create and define product roadmaps

• Carry out product testing prior to releases

• Analyze product launches and assess key metrics

• Present product release results to stakeholders

Workplace skills 

Technical skills are only one part of the larger skill set you’ll need to succeed. Specific workplace skills are also key, including:

• Robust communication skills 

• Ability to strategically acquire and allocate resources

• Ability to define and then track key performance indicators (KPIs)

• Collaboration and coordination skills 

• Overall strategic thinking

As you progress along the product manager career path, leadership and management skills will also become crucial to overseeing larger teams. 

How to start a career in product management

If you’ve determined a career in product management is potentially a good fit for you, start by acquiring the requisite formal education. Many project managers have a bachelor’s degree in a related field, such as business management or supply chain and operations management. Others may extend their formal education by acquiring a master’s degree in business administration. 

However, getting your degree is only one option. Data suggests that 11 percent of product managers don’t have a bachelor’s or a master’s [7]. You may also begin your career path by taking alternate training or certifications and gaining experience.  

Your first role will likely be in a position like an entry-level associate product manager. During this period, you may want to pursue professional certifications, such as Product Management Certification from the Pragmatic Institute or the Certified Product Manager credential from the Association of International Product Marketing and Management (AIPMM), to finetune your essential skills—both technical and workplace—needed for product managers while also building your product management portfolio. 

Begin your product management career path with Coursera

The product management career path can be a very fulfilling choice for those who value variety, enjoy collaborating with multiple teams, and want to improve the products that impact businesses and consumers every day. 

Hone valuable skills for success as a product manager with courses such as the University of North Texas’s Bachelor of Science in General Business or IBM’s Product Manager Professional Certificate, both available on Coursera.