It’s Time to Fight for a Dual Product Management Career Path

It’s Time to Fight for a Dual Product Management Career Path

The discomfort is because the widely assumed career path for PMs is quite simple and looks something like this:

1. Start as a product manager
2. Move up the ladder to senior product manager
3. Continue climbing to become a director of product management
4. Finally, reach the pinnacle as a VP of product or chief product officer

But what happens if somewhere along the line you discover that you’re climbing someone else’s ladder or just that you’re done climbing and happy to stay on your current rung? We had to work tremendously hard to get the job to begin with, which makes this CEO hustle peer pressure so exhausting. To many, becoming a product manager was the achievement, and now we’re expected to keep on marching? What if this is our destination? You end up losing talented people and stacking your leadership ranks with reluctant, incompetent people managers (the so-called Peter Principle).

So, why is it different for product managers? Some tech companies do have at least partial dual career ladders, exemplified by a principal product manager role. I’ve heard complaints from employees at these companies that the principal level is not really equal to the management rung. Despite PM ladders mirroring Eng (and Design) in many other ways, why did we have principal software engineer and principal designer roles but no principal product manager? Their response was, “It’s hard for a product manager to be an individual contributor since a lot of product management work at the senior level requires managing a team.”

What they don’t like is when the “management” part of their job begins to drown out the “product” parts. Worse, the expansion of my responsibilities left me with minimal time to shine at the parts of management I enjoyed the most. As your department’s headcount and business surface area grows, you spend more of your day managing up and sideways than managing down. (Less charitably: bureaucracy and politics trample coaching.)

To move toward dual product management career paths becoming a reality, we need to establish some core principles upfront:

1. Product management isn’t merely a stepping stone; it’s a career. My proposal isn’t a choice between managers vs. individual contributors. People should be encouraged to design careers that align with their values and help them find fulfillment.
2. This is because the GPM is still learning the people management ropes, and we want to give them space to focus on strengthening those skills through training, coaching, and practice. GPMs and principals are peers on the ladder, and the split between the two paths starts a level earlier. The product leadership–people management split is even more extreme for principal product managers: 80%–20% or even 90%–10%.
3. In early-stage companies, the director role — or even the VP of product — might have job duties comparable to a principal. This is often why PMs feeling uneasy with management overhead at big companies are attracted to director or VP positions at startups. A friend calls this “promotion downsizing” — a better title with fewer direct reports. Ladders can allow for lateral movement. Someone can spend time as a director and then decide that they’d like to switch to the other ladder, becoming a principal.

Product management has matured and is long overdue for the same treatment that our technical colleagues have received for decades. Most importantly, one’s base compensation, bonus, and equity should be comparable no matter which path one follows. And most importantly, no one should ever feel like they have to give up doing what they love in order to advance in their career.

In addition to discussing the need for a dual product management career path, it is also essential to explore how systems like zettelkasten can enhance creativity and support the work of product managers. A zettelkasten is a method of note-taking that consists of individual notes with ideas and other short pieces of information. These notes are taken down as they occur or are acquired, and may be numbered hierarchically to allow for easy insertion of new notes. The system also involves adding metadata to associate notes with each other.

The zettelkasten method not only allows researchers to store and retrieve information related to their research, but it has also been used to enhance creativity. Product managers can adopt this method to capture and organize their thoughts, ideas, and insights. By having a structured system for note-taking, product managers can easily refer back to their ideas, connect different pieces of information, and uncover unique insights that can drive product innovation.

By combining the concept of a dual product management career path with the use of systems like zettelkasten, product managers can not only navigate their careers more effectively but also enhance their creativity and contribute more to their organizations. Here are three actionable pieces of advice to implement:

1. Embrace the idea of a dual product management career path and advocate for its implementation in your organization. Start conversations with leaders and colleagues about the benefits of having separate tracks for people management and product leadership. Highlight the importance of allowing individuals to choose a career path that aligns with their skills, interests, and goals.

2. Adopt a note-taking system like zettelkasten to capture and organize your thoughts, ideas, and insights as a product manager. Create a hierarchical structure for your notes, add metadata to associate them with each other, and regularly review and connect different pieces of information. This will help you uncover unique insights, make better product decisions, and enhance your creativity.

3. Seek opportunities for lateral movement within your organization. If you feel overwhelmed by the management aspects of your role, consider exploring roles that allow you to focus more on product leadership. Talk to your manager or HR about the possibility of transitioning to a role that aligns better with your strengths and interests. Remember, a successful career is not just about climbing the ladder but finding fulfillment in the work you do.

In conclusion, it's time to fight for a dual product management career path that recognizes the unique skill set and contributions of product managers. By advocating for this change, adopting systems like zettelkasten, and seeking opportunities for lateral movement, product managers can navigate their careers more effectively, enhance their creativity, and contribute more to their organizations. It's time to break free from the traditional career path and embrace a more flexible and fulfilling approach to product management.