Why Product Manager roles even exist? - Part 2
Different types of product management.
Career path of product manager
There’s already a ton of information out there about the product management career path, so instead of rehashing the same thing, I’ll take a slightly different perspective. The goal isn’t to give you a rigid framework to follow but to help you think about your long-term trajectory in a way that actually makes sense for you.
Typical career ladders for PMs on paper look something like this:
Associate PM → PM → Senior PM → Lead PM → Group PM or Principal PM → Director → VP → CPO
At least, that’s the textbook version. But in reality, almost no people follow this clean linear trajectory. Many start from non-PM roles—engineers, designers, analysts, or customer support—before transitioning in. Once you become a Sr. PM, the usual way to move up is by switching companies, since internal promotions can be difficult and slow. Actually, I lied. Main reason is the salary. You typically get higher salary by moving to a new company. Then, you hit a ceiling, maybe you get stuck, maybe there’s a reorg, or maybe you get laid off.
So what happens? You go back to a PM role, possibly in a different industry, and climb up again to Lead PM. Then, you join a larger company—only to find yourself back at the PM level due to title deflation at big enterprises. The cycle repeats.
Over time, some people grow frustration and pivot out. Some start their own company. Others transition into adjacent roles like operations, strategy, or even venture capital. PMs are used to assessing business potential, identifying trends, and understanding what makes products succeed or fail. This ability to spot high-growth opportunities, combined with deep execution experience, makes them valuable candidates for other roles in business.
Not everyone becomes a CPO, and that’s fine. The PM career path isn’t a ladder—it’s more like a maze with occasional trapdoors. If you understand why this function of product management exists and focus on developing the skill sets that will help you excel at your current job, things will work out the way they should.
Different types of product managers
I am sure you already used chatgpt or perplexity to figure this part out. If you haven’t, here is my take on different types of product managers.
Not all PMs do the same thing. Depending on the company and industry, you’ll see different flavors of PM roles. However, the main essence of why product management exist doesn’t change.
Platform PMs – They tend to focus on building internal or external tools, APIs, and infrastructure that enable other teams to build great products. Typically, you can expect platform PM requires a bit more technical skills than the others and deal with complex dependencies.
Growth PMs – Mix of marketing and analytics role. They work on user acquisition, activation, and retention. It’s all about optimizing the user funnels through experimentation. Many folks with marketing or ecommerce background tend to do well in this role.
Data/AI/ML PMs – Specialize in products powered by machine learning and artificial intelligence, often requiring a data background. You could argue this is similar to platform PM. Challenging part of this role is that many companies assume this role “should” be technical but success measure requires more of non-technical skills. Goal of this role is to ponder this question of how to make data more accessible and easily consumable by the users.
B2B PMs – Building for B2B customers, often focusing on long sales cycles, customization, and complex stakeholder management. It’s very common to see B2B product company becoming a private agency for biggest bill paying customer. This is the complex relationship B2B PMs need to navigate.
B2C PMs – Develop B2C products where engagement, user experience, and scaling up are the priorities. Because you tend to get the user feedback right away, it’s fun yet very difficult to maintain. Think like a clothing brand. Having a best technical fabric doesn’t guarantee you engagement. I guess that’s why it makes it fun.
Fintech PMs – Deal with compliance-heavy financial products, where risk management is as important as user experience. Because of the nature of industry, many non-technical yet business policy savvy folks tend to become Fintech PM.
Zero to One (New Product) PMs – Thrive in ambiguity, building products from scratch and finding product-market fit. It requires very different way of looking at product management when you are doing zero to one. No framework, best practices, and/or playbook will work. You just got to have a natural product sense to build based on set of premises and hypothesis, gather feedback, distill down the feedback to action items, and repeat quickly. It’s fun.
In relatively big companies, they also segment PMs into different growth stream: Individual Contributor vs. People Management. At some point, every PM faces a decision: Do I stay on the IC track, or do I go into people management?
IC (Individual Contributor) PMs – Focus on high-impact product decisions, execution, and strategy. They get deep into the work but don’t manage a team directly.
PM Leaders (People Management) – Scale their impact by leading teams, mentoring other PMs, and setting a vision for the product org.
A common mistake is thinking that people management is the only way to grow. The truth is, great companies offer parallel tracks for IC and leadership roles. Some people love solving product problems and hate managing people. Others thrive in coaching and building teams. Neither is better—it just depends on what excites you.
My personal opinion around this is that most ICs are actually a good people manager but most product leaders are not a good IC. If possible, it’s always good to switch back and forth throughout your career.
Another segmentation is looking at the company size to answer types of product manager question.
Startups – You wear multiple hats, work with extreme ambiguity, and often don’t have the luxury of deep specialization. Speed matters more than process. Expect to work on everything from defining the roadmap to writing support documentation. You will learn “figure it out” mentality. You will learn how to work hard to build a good product.
Enterprises – There’s more structure, defined career paths, and specialized roles. You have access to more resources but also a lot more bureaucracy. While your scope might be smaller, you’ll have a more refined system for execution. You can learn how to build product but you will learn more around how to work hard not to get fired.
Neither is inherently better; it’s just a trade-off. Some PMs thrive in fast-moving environments, while others prefer structured growth. If you’re unsure, trying both at different points in your career can give you a better sense of what works for you.
I think the question you should be asking yourself is ‘What do I want to be doing in my 50s?’
Do you want to be leading massive product orgs? People management might be your path.
Do you want to stay deep in product strategy without the people headaches? IC might be the right choice.
Do you want to start your own company? You might want to focus on 0-to-1 skills early on.
You have no idea yet? That’s fine and this function of product management is going to change in next 5+ years. Just start by talking to people. Invest back into yourself. Quicker you start, quicker you will end up at a place you want. When I say ‘quicker’, it doesn’t mean you should rush. Define that pace you feel slightly uncomfortable. That’s just enough quickness. Learn to think in depth, exercise being able to articulate your thoughts, and just cold DM a few folks. You never know how life will turn out.