product management research job description

The Complete Guide to Product Manager Job Descriptions

If you’re looking to start a career in product management , you may be wondering what the product manager job description entails.

If you’re already in the industry, perhaps you need a hand navigating the vast and complex world of product manager job ads as you look for your next role. 

Either way, you’ve probably noticed that, confusingly, the product manager job description means different things to different companies. You’ve likely also come across some overwhelmingly long lists of tasks, skills, and requirements.

But don’t let this deter you. We’ve put together this guide to demystify the product manager job description. By the end, you’ll know exactly what to expect from product manager job descriptions—and we’ll also share some advice for deciphering job ads as you embark on your own job search. 

We’ve written this guide with aspiring and existing product managers in mind, but it will also be useful for employers/hiring managers tasked with writing a product manager job description. 

Here’s what we’ll cover:

• What is the job description of a product manager?
• The product manager job description: Tasks and responsibilities
• The product manager job description: Skills, requirements, and qualifications
• Product manager job description examples
• Junior product manager job descriptions
• Senior product manager job descriptions
• Deciphering product manager job descriptions when applying for jobs

So: What exactly is the job description of a product manager? Let’s find out. 

1. What is the job description of a product manager?

Product managers are responsible for managing and guiding a product through its entire life cycle.

A product is something a company offers to end users—be it a physical product (for example, recipe and ingredient kits delivered as part of a monthly subscription), a service (such as online education), or some kind of app or software. 

Whatever form the product takes, it’s the product manager’s job to ensure that it’s as successful as possible in line with business goals and end user needs. 

To that end, the product manager conducts research to figure out what customers/end users want from a product, ensuring that the business is building the right thing. They develop an overarching product strategy, define product specifications and requirements, and guide and oversee the design, development, launch, and marketing of the product. 

The product manager role is highly strategic. They ensure that the product evolves in a direction that contributes to the achievement of business goals—defining a long-term vision for the product and overseeing the execution of that vision. 

That’s the product manager role in a nutshell. You can learn more about what a product manager does in our guide . For now, let’s take a closer look at the tasks and responsibilities you can expect to find in a product manager job description. 

2. The product manager job description: Tasks and responsibilities

The exact tasks and responsibilities included in a product manager job description will vary depending on several factors.

For instance, a product manager working solo in a small company may have a much broader spectrum of tasks than a product manager who is part of a large product management team. It also depends on where the product is currently at in its life cycle. 

But, generally, the tasks and responsibilities of a product manager are steeped in the product management process —a seven-step process which takes the product from inception through to development, launch, and iteration. 

Here are some of the most common product manager tasks and responsibilities you might find in a product manager job description:

• Conducting and/or overseeing research to gain a deep understanding of the customer/end user’s needs
• Gathering and managing ideas coming from different sources (e.g. internal stakeholders, business leaders, and customers/end users). This includes building and maintaining an ideas backlog, and keeping stakeholders informed about the status of their ideas and requests
• Developing a product strategy which directly relates to the business strategy
• Defining and writing product specifications. This is usually a document which sets out the product requirements, answering questions such as: What should be built and why? What should the new product or feature achieve? How will success be defined and measured?
• Building and owning the product roadmap —the strategic plan of action for the product, ensuring execution is aligned with strategy
• Prioritization: Taking a closer look at the ideas backlog and deciding which items should be prioritized in line with the product strategy and KPIs
• Defining overall success metrics for the product
• Overseeing the development and delivery of the product; turning items from the backlog into tasks and projects for the development/engineering team
• Writing user stories. User stories are short descriptions of features to be built, written from the perspective of the end user to emphasize the value this particular feature will bring
• Overseeing the creation of product prototypes in collaboration with end users, internal stakeholders, designers, and developers, and gathering and implementing feedback on those prototypes
• Running experiments and using analytics to measure the product’s performance and identify opportunities for improvement
• Setting up processes to capture and organize user feedback

Within and around these product-related tasks, product managers are expected to:

• Liaise with and present to the leadership team to gain approval for product-related initiatives
• Collaborate and build strong relationships with a variety of stakeholders, from designers and developers to marketing, sales, customer care, and leadership
• Act as the go-to person for anything and everything concerning the product

We’ve shared a rather long and extensive list of product manager tasks! Note that you might not find all of these responsibilities in every product manager job description. As we mentioned previously, the exact role of the product manager varies depending on the company size, setup, and product type. 

Next up in our exploration of the product manager job description: the skills and qualifications that employers typically look for. 

3. The product manager job description: Skills, requirements, and qualifications

Another important aspect of any job description is skills and qualifications.

When it comes to product manager job descriptions, you’ll find that the role requires technical know-how and business acumen coupled with a range of soft skills—with skills like communication, problem-solving, and critical and strategic thinking taking top priority. 

We’ve written about the top product manager skills in this guide , and we’ll run through the most important skills and qualifications that tend to feature in product manager job descriptions now.

We’ll divide them in terms of hard skills, soft skills, and qualifications and other requirements.

The product manager job description: Hard skills

• Proficiency in the most popular product management tools
• Thorough understanding of the product life cycle and the product management process
• Ability to run A/B tests and other experiments
• Ability to analyze and interpret data
• An understanding of web technologies and programming languages (i.e. the technical side of product development)
• An understanding of UX principles
• Ability to conduct customer and market research
• Developing proof of concepts and prototyping
• Ability to build and manage a product roadmap

The product manager job description: Soft skills

• Communication, collaboration, and interpersonal skills
• The ability to problem-solve 
• The ability to prioritize
• Strategic thinking
• A knack for storytelling
• Excellent time management
• Confident decision-making
• The ability to manage multiple projects and priorities at once

The product manager job description: Qualifications & other requirements

• A background in marketing, software engineering, business administration, project management, or something similar
• A product management certification (learn more about how to get one in our full product management certification guide )
• Experience in a specific industry (for example, finance, healthcare, e-commerce, media, etc.) 

Bear in mind that this isn’t a hard-and-fast, universal set of product manager requirements—nor would you be expected to meet every single one of them when applying for a product manager job.

As always, different companies will prioritize different skills and qualifications depending on the exact role they’re hiring for. 

4. Product manager job description examples

The best way to understand product manager job descriptions is to look at real-world examples. So: let’s evaluate a real product manager job ad that is live at the time of writing. 

Product manager job description example: Home Depot 

Our first example is a job ad for a remote product manager , posted by Home Depot. 

This product manager job description reads:

“The product manager position is responsible for delivering business value to drive sales, improve efficiency, and improve customer satisfaction through the production of quality products. Within their designated enterprise product line, PMs focus on delivering incremental value by driving product changes and working closely with a team of developers, designers, and business partners. They support in-depth business reviews, communicate and present across all levels of the organization, and support cross-functional product teams.”

For this particular role, the main tasks, responsibilities, and key accountabilities have been divided as follows: 40% strategy and planning, 30% delivery and execution, and 30% people. 

Within these categories, the product manager will be expected to carry out the following tasks:

Strategy and planning (40%):

• Translate business goals and end user needs into product strategy
• Identify goals, metrics, and analytics to determine product value
• Continually make recommendations and refinements to the product backlog based on learnings
• Conduct end user research to help identify user stories and determine Minimum Viable Product (MVP)
• Monitor the competitive landscape

Delivery and execution (30%):

• Ensure the product is aligned with company, stakeholder, and end user priorities to drive sales, improve efficiency, and improve customer satisfaction
• Formulate, test, and refine assumptions and hypotheses through user research and testing
• Identify pros, cons, issues, obstacles, dependencies, and value associated with features and enhancements
• Participate in standups, iteration planning sessions, product demos, and retrospectives

People (30%):

• Foster collaboration with team members (engineering, user experience designers, etc.) to drive value and collectively identify and resolve impediments
• Act as a proponent of modern software development practices
• Advocate for the end user and stakeholder by empathizing with and understanding user needs 
• Manage cross-functional team and stakeholder expectations to execute on product strategy
• Exhibit active listening, facilitate sessions, and clearly communicate at all levels

Under preferred qualifications and desired skills, knowledge, and competencies, the Home Depot product manager job description lists:

• 1-3 years of relevant work experience
• Demonstrated experience with modern software development product management practices and agile methodologies
• Experience working in a fast-paced, fluid environment where priorities shift on a regular basis
• Experience conducting user research and testing to understand needs
• Business insight
• Collaboration and communication
• Ability to build strong customer relationships and deliver customer-centric solutions
• Adaptability
• Organizational savvy (the ability to maneuver comfortably through complex policy, process, and people-related organizational dynamics)

The estimated salary range for this role is $80,000-$180,000. You can see how this compares to the average product manager salary in our dedicated guide . 

This is just one real-world example of a product manager job description. For further examples—and to get a feel for how the product manager job description varies from company to company—search “product manager” on job sites like Indeed and LinkedIn .

Next, we’ll look at job descriptions for junior and senior product managers. 

5. Junior product manager job descriptions 

Those new to the field might start with a junior product manager role. 

The tasks of a junior product manager aren’t much different from those of a product manager. However, being less experienced in the field, junior product managers will usually support more senior product managers rather than acting completely independently. 

You’ll notice that junior product manager job descriptions place much more emphasis on soft skills and an ability to learn on the job. This is an entry level role, after all, so it’s important that the requirements reflect this. 

So what are the typical features of a junior product manager job description? Let’s take a look at a real-world example. 

Junior product manager job description example: PacerPro

PacerPro is a market-leading workflow automation and experience capture tool for US federal court filings. At the time of writing, they are hiring for a junior product manager.

The junior product manager description reads:

“The [junior product manager] role is suited for a quick learner and creative thinker who wants to develop innovative products for managing complex litigation. You need experience in a project management role, strong communication and organization skills, and an interest in the intersection of legal practice and data.

In your role, you will be one of the first product team members, reporting to the Director of Product . You will work with PacerPro’s product, design, and engineering teams to help develop and maintain legal technology products for our customers, expand our product offerings, and widen our customer base.” 

For this particular role, the junior product manager’s responsibilities include:

• Helping to define the company’s product vision and strategic roadmap, including setting objectives and key results
• Working with UX/UI designers to develop wireframes, mockups, and interactive prototypes
• Analyzing customer and industry data to uncover and understand user requirements, organization goals, and technical capabilities and apply them to functional concepts
• Generating user stories with acceptance criteria and creating supporting documentation
• Coordinating with sales and engineering teams to ensure functional and visual design quality at each step of the software development process

The  requirements focus primarily on soft and transferable skills, including:

• Strong critical thinking skills
• Demonstrated ability to develop practical subject matter expertise in unfamiliar areas
• Clear, concise, and prompt written and oral communication for a variety of audiences
• Organized approach to projects requiring data entry, organization, and/or analysis
• Ability to simultaneously manage and execute multiple projects and competing priorities

In this example, the junior product manager job description is much broader than the product manager job description, with less specific requirements in terms of technical expertise and experience.

Good news for entry-level product managers looking to land their first job in the field!

6. Senior product manager job descriptions

After product manager, the next step in the product manager career path is usually senior product manager. 

The senior title means different things to different companies, so the exact tasks featured in senior product manager job descriptions can vary greatly.

Still, the senior product manager typically continues to have a hands-on role in executing the product management process. They may also manage junior product managers and focus more heavily on strategy. 

Let’s explore how a senior product manager job description might look with an example. 

Senior product manager job description example: Audible

A subsidiary of Amazon, Audible is an online podcast and audiobook service. At the time of writing, they are hiring for a senior product manager. 

The senior product manager job description reads:

“Audible is seeking a Senior Product Manager who will develop global product strategies, build and launch unequaled customer-centric experiences in a variety of geographies. This role is part of the Global Expansion & Growth team, within the Product Organization, and is pivotal to accelerating Audible global growth and ensuring that we deliver exceptional experiences to our customers across the globe.”

The ideal candidate:

• Has a track record of defining, building, and launching high-quality consumer-facing products
• Has a demonstrated ability to evaluate opportunistic and innovative ideas, and create product roadmaps that drive customer delight and business results
• Obsesses over customer needs and leverages quantitative and qualitative data to back up assumptions and drive decisions
• Knows how to gain trust and build consensus among diverse stakeholders
• Proactively identifies and communicates risks, and adapts their communication style to suit the audience

The tasks and responsibilities listed in this senior product manager job description focus heavily on delivering customer-centric solutions, identifying and tapping into market opportunities, and driving growth at scale. 

The senior product manager should:

• Envision, define, build, and launch unequaled experiences that pioneer new ways to reach global customers in a variety of geographies
• Extend global products into localized experiences that meet the local customers’ needs and tap into market-specific opportunities
• Learn the needs, pain points, and behavior of International Audible users and develop strong intuition about solutions that will work for them
• Frame and lead discussions with key business and technical stakeholders to assess opportunities, make data-driven recommendations, and build consensus ahead of important investment decisions

As is the case with most senior product manager roles, this position requires at least five years’ experience in a product management role (ideally customer-facing), a degree (the field of study isn’t specified), and demonstrated experience in agile, lean product management processes. 

As you can see, there is lots of overlap between junior, mid-level, and senior product manager job descriptions in terms of day-to-day tasks.

The main difference is that junior product manager job descriptions focus on soft skills and learning on the job, while mid-level and senior product manager roles require more technical expertise and, oftentimes, a more strategic focus. 

Learn more about the role in our dedicated guide to the senior product manager .

7. Deciphering product manager job descriptions when applying for jobs

Throughout this post, we’ve explored the skills, requirements, and tasks you can typically expect to find in product manager job descriptions, ranging from junior to mid-level to senior roles. 

If you’re an aspiring product manager considering your first role, or a product manager looking to step into a senior position, it’s important to bear in mind that you don’t need to tick every single box in the job ad .

When composing job descriptions, employers will often write up their wishlist with the “perfect” candidate in mind. But, in reality, it’s unlikely that any one candidate will satisfy all criteria. 

So: When applying for jobs and reading through product manager job descriptions, don’t let those seemingly-never-ending (and sometimes impossibly specific) lists of requirements deter you. If you can demonstrate most of the required soft skills and a good handful of the hard skills, you can confidently put yourself forward for the role. 

To learn more about product manager job descriptions, we recommend browsing job sites for roles across different industries, company types, and seniority levels.

You’ll begin to get a feel for what the product manager job description means to different companies—and get an idea of the kinds of roles and sectors that spark your interest and best speak to your career aspirations. 

Want to learn more about a career in product management? Check out the following:

• What is the difference between a product manager and a product owner?
• What’s the difference between a product manager and a project manager?

• Product Management
• Product Manager

Product Manager: The role and best practices for beginners

Get a clear picture of the product manager’s role and responsibilities, tips to rocking the job, and more.

Browse topics

First, a confession: Ten years ago, when I was invited to apply for a product manager position at Atlassian, I didn’t know what product management  was. This wasn’t unusual. While product management has existed in one form or another for a number of decades, the “product manager” title only started picking up steam less than 20 years ago. And still, I encounter talks at conferences called “What Does a Product Manager Do?” (Actually, I sort of gave  one of these talks .)

What is a product manager?

A product manager is the person who identifies the customer need and the larger business objectives that a product or feature will fulfill, articulates what success looks like for a product, and rallies a team to turn that vision into a reality. After 10 years of studying the craft of product management, I’ve developed a deep understanding of what it means to be a product manager.

The confusion about what a product manager is likely stems from the recency of the role. Where practitioners of more established crafts, like design and engineering, have been able to segment themselves by their specialization, product managers are still defining what the role should be.

Martin Eriksson, product leader extraordinaire and founder of ProductTank, initially summed up product management in a simple Venn diagram that sits the product manager at the intersection of business, technology, and user experience. Fifteen years ago, Ben Horowitz, CEO of Opsware, called the product manager the “ CEO of the product .” 

I agree with both Eriksson and Horowitz, but not always with how their definitions are interpreted. People see Eriksson’s diagram and think that product managers manage the product between all three disciplines (UX, technology, and business). Really, though, he's saying product managers need to balance all three needs and make hard decisions and trade-offs. People hear Horowitz’s analogy and think product managers have some kind of special authority. They don’t. But, like a CEO, product managers set the goals, define success, help motivate teams, and are responsible for the outcome.

Product manager responsibilities

Specific responsibilities vary depending on the size of the organization. In larger organizations, for instance, product managers are embedded within teams of specialists. Researchers, analysts, and marketers help gather input, while developers and designers manage the day-to-day execution, draw up designs, test prototypes, and find bugs. These product managers have more help, but they also spend more time aligning these stakeholders behind a specific vision.

On the flip side, product managers at smaller organizations spend less time getting everyone to agree, but more time doing the hands-on work that comes with defining a vision and seeing it through.

Broadly speaking, though, a good product manager will spend his or her time on a handful of tasks. 

Understanding and representing user needs.

Monitoring the market and developing competitive analyses.

Defining a vision for a product.

Aligning stakeholders around the vision for the product. 

Prioritizing product features and capabilities.

Creating a shared brain across larger teams to empower independent decision-making.

Product manager vs. product owner

Whether or not a team is adhering to a certain agile practice (and which one), can further muddy the waters when it comes to what a product manager does. For instance, if a team is practicing scrum , then they also need to have a product owner.

While a product manager defines the direction of the product through research, vision-setting, alignment, and prioritization, the product owner should work more closely with the development team to execute against the goals that the product manager helps to define.

Here’s how that tends to break out:

Involved in day-to-day activities

But responsibilities can shift a bit when team makeups and practices shift. For instance, if the team isn’t doing Scrum (say, they’re doing kanban  or something else), the product manager might end up doing the prioritization for the development team and play a larger role in making sure everyone is on the same page. On the other hand, if the team is doing Scrum, but doesn’t have a product manager, then the product owner often ends up taking on some of the product manager’s responsibilities.

All of this can get really murky really quickly, which is why teams have to be careful to clearly define responsibilities, or they can risk falling into the old ways of building software, where one group writes the requirements and throws it over the fence for another group to build. When this happens expectations get misaligned, time gets wasted, and teams run the risk of creating products or features that don’t satisfy customer needs.

Best practices and tips for being a great product manager

Just as there isn’t only one kind of team, one of the most exciting aspects of the product manager role is that there isn’t only one way to do it. During the last two decades, the craft has exploded both in popularity and approach. Unlike designers who have successfully segmented themselves into interaction designers, graphic designers, motion designers, and so on, product managers, as a whole, are still wrestling with how to label their different strengths.

To complicate matters, people are only beginning to pursue product management as their intended discipline. Where older generations “fell into product management” from engineering, design, finance, or marketing, younger generations are starting their careers with product management in mind.

That said, there are a handful of skills and practices that any good product manager will need to develop.

Prioritize ruthlessly

A colleague recently likened product management to being a politician. It’s not far off. The product manager and the politician both get an allotted amount of resources. Each role requires the practitioner to make the best use of those resources to achieve a larger goal, knowing that he or she will never be able to satisfy everyone’s needs.

At any one time, the product manager might have to decide between a feature that might make one big customer happy but upset 100 smaller customers; maintaining a product’s status quo or steering it in a new direction to expand its reach and align with larger business goals; or whether to focus on the bright and shiny or the boring and important.

Clearly understanding the costs and benefits of each choice guides the product manager toward the right decision.

Know the lay of the land

Product managers need to know the lay of the land better than anyone else. They very rarely start with a clean slate. More than likely, product managers are dropped into something that already has momentum. If they start executing without taking the time to get their bearings, they’ll make bad decisions.

Good product managers pump the brakes and start by asking questions. If you’re just starting a product management job, take the first couple of months to talk to as many customers as you can. Talk to as many internal stakeholders as you can. Understand the business model. Understand the history. Understand how different people are influenced. Understand how decisions are made. Only then, can you start making a few decisions of your own.

Empower your team to make their own decisions

Product managers can’t make every decision. Believe me. I’ve tried. At the end of the day, I nearly always have unread messages. I’m often double and triple booked. And I could spend all day answering questions and never finish.

But touching every decision isn’t the product manager's job—at least it shouldn’t be. One of the keys to great product management is empowering your team to make their own decisions by creating a shared brain—or a way of making decisions and a set of criteria for escalating them. When someone asks a product manager a question about a decision they could have made themselves, nine times out of 10 it’s because that person doesn’t have enough context to make the decision themselves. Great product managers build that context.

Learn to influence without authority

I know a junior product manager that is nearly universally respected by her team even though initially many of its members would have traded her in for a more seasoned leader given the choice. How did she change their minds? She took each person on the 30-person team out for coffee and listened to them.

Influence comes in many forms. Listening to people and understanding how they’re influenced is the first part. Figuring out how to get them on board with your point of view is the second. Becoming a great storyteller—even when you don’t have any data to back up your point—will take you a long way. Some people won’t be convinced until they see you do the work. Understanding which levers to pull with which person is the key to leading without any direct authority.

Develop a thick skin

Making tradeoffs will inevitably make people unhappy. The trick is to first make the right tradeoffs, and then be able to explain why you made the decision you did. If you’re good at explaining your decision, someone can still not like it, but more often than not, they’ll respect the way you made it. And even if they don’t, great product managers figure out a way to deal with it.

Great product managers

For me, the really great product managers are one in a million. They’re the people who can do all of the above and set incredible product visions. It’s the rare breed that’s forward-thinking, highly influential, and can walk people through the rationale behind a decision and convince them—even without data. People like Steve Jobs and Elon Musk come to mind.

We idolize these people, in part, because it’s satisfying to put a face and a name on a big accomplishment. But 99 percent of the time, great products aren’t made by a single great thinker. They’re made by teams of good people doing really good work. The job of the product manager is to develop his or her unique way of guiding that work.

Try Jira Product Discovery for free

Prioritize, collaborate on, and deliver new product ideas — and build for impact.

Related resources

• Project Execution Resources
• Product Launch Resources
• Project Management Go-To-Market Strategies
• Resource Management Resources
• Task-Tracking Resources
• Software Project Management

Sherif Mansour has been in software development for over 20 years. He is currently a Distinguished Product Manager for Atlassian. As a long-tenured Atlassian, he has responsible for Confluence, trying to solve problems across all of Atlassian’s cloud products and establishing a new product incubator inside Atlassian. Sherif also played a key role in developing new products at Atlassian such as Stride, Team Calendars and Confluence Questions. Today, he leads product strategy for Atlassian’s newest product, Team Central. Sherif thinks building simple products is hard and so is writing a simple, short bio.

Your first week as a product manager

Should you study the tech stack your first week on the job? Take the team out for lunch? Whatever you do, make sure to spend time with your customers.

• Integrations
• Learning Center

What is a Product Manager’s Job?

• Table of Contents
• The Ultimate Guide to a Product Manager's Job
• What is a Product Manager?
• Product Manager Skills

A Good PM vs. a Great PM

Embrace prioritization, responsibility without authority.

• Getting Started in Your Role
• Communication with Your Stakeholders

Frustrating Aspects of the Job

• Continuing Your Product Manager Education
• Download Book

No two product managers are alike. They hail from varied backgrounds. They emphasize different aspects of the role and have different styles and interpersonal skills. Some are freshly minted college grads. Some are grizzled veterans making a career change from more technical disciplines. Others are lifers, with war stories and anecdotes to spare.

With so much diversity and range amongst their ranks, pinning down a prototypical product manager is impossible. But you’ve got to start somewhere, keeping in mind the role is vastly different depending on the company; here’s a semi-definitive guide to this oft-misunderstood profession.

What does a product manager job description look like? Ask ten product managers to describe their jobs, and you’re likely to hear ten different answers. Unlike a schoolteacher or a police officer, “product managers” don’t have a distinct and consistent job description simply because the responsibilities of product managers vary quite a bit across industries and businesses.

Whatever their specific responsibilities, all product managers share a core function: drive the development of products and ultimately be responsible for the success of those products.

We’ve defined a product manager’s job at the highest-level — they drive the development of products — but what exactly does that mean? What do product managers do? Does it change if they’re in B2B vs. B2C?

Let’s delve deeper into the product manager’s job.

Strategic direction

Product managers are information gatherers, defining the strategic direction of their products through the lens of knowledge they acquire about:

• Their business’s strategic goals
• The market’s demands and opportunities
• The technological and financial resources available to them to make the product a reality.

Once they have analyzed all this data and determined a strategic direction, the product manager’s job is to communicate this strategy to many stakeholders and to earn buy-in from decision-makers. They then ensure the appropriate teams understand their roles and have the tools they need to execute the product strategy moving forward.

Communicate, coordinate, and persuade

Despite having a consensus on the strategy, the implementation doesn’t just magically happen. Product managers have to fight for attention from development teams, lobby for resources and convince sales and marketing to give their products appropriate love and care.

Without manufacturing momentum, windows of opportunity can close, and competitors can make significant gains. Product management must keep the train moving forward, even though they don’t have any engines of their own.

But this shouldn’t be confused with managing the minutiae of the implementation itself. Product managers are also often asked to play the role of project manager and facilitator. But really, “how” the team delivers is up to them. Product managers are a part of that conversation.

The Technical Product Manager Variant

There is a particular type of product manager known as a “ technical product manager .” Other specialized product management titles exist, but this is by far the most common.

Before diving into the specifics of what a technical product manager does, there is an underlying question of whether or not product managers must be technical to do well in the role. There are many viewpoints on the subject. If you’re managing a software or hardware product, then technical skills are seen as a big plus.  

The title comes with its own particular set of expectations and responsibilities. A technical product manager is expected to possess significant, practical knowledge about programming, system design, and the like. They should be conversant in the technical solution stack the product uses and hold their own in discussions with the technical team. Their experience helps them avoid the pitfalls of requesting things that are infeasible or too large of an ask for the allotted development cycle. The technical product management role is a common stepping stone for former developers, tech support staff, and architects looking to move into the product management field. 

Technical product managers typically exist in larger product management teams. They sometimes own responsibility for a particular part of the product but are also often deployed on an ad hoc basis to manage the technical aspects of different initiatives.

Product management requires a combination of specific hard skills and soft people skills to effectively shepherd a product through the various phases of its lifecycle.

Product development processes:

A concrete understanding of the role and product development processes and frameworks is essential. Before finessing the interpersonal dynamics of working with a product development team, product managers must be able to speak their language, comprehend the expectations, and know the scope of their job versus that of project managers, UX professionals , architects, and the like.

Pricing principles:

Product managers also need a solid understanding of fundamental business and economic policies. Pricing often falls on their shoulders. If they’re unable to turn the underlying unit economics into a profitable and scalable business, they’ll have a pretty short career.

Prioritization:

Prioritization is at the core of product management. Assessing the relative value and impact of each potential feature, technical debt, project, and initiative, and creating a coherent strategy is the most critical part of the job. A coherent strategy includes being able to say no when the time comes, as well as recognizing the need for a pivot or strategic shift if applicable.

Communication:

On the softer side, communication lies at the heart of any successful product manager. They must be a cipher and be comfortable speaking with all sorts of people filling different roles. They speak with customers, internal teams, and stakeholders. Product managers must get along with engineers and relate to the perspectives of stakeholders.

Conveying a strategy and vision, along with specific plans and their rationale, is vital. Product managers must build consensus, break down (or at least work across) organizational silos , and win over stakeholders to get their job done. More than other roles, product managers deal with the various personality types of individuals that can play a part in a product’s success and growth, or in its crash and failure.

We’ve linked below a great webinar on the Essential Skills all Product Managers Must Master . The discussion covered what a product manager is not, soft skills PMs need to embrace, and the tools of the trade all product managers should know.

Without an official certification, specific college degree, or formal training program that authorizes someone as an “approved product manager,” there are a variety of backgrounds in the product management space. For some, this ambiguity is a cherished element of the role. Some are glorified techies, whereas others are all about the market and positioning. Then you have some that are business analysts with some clout, while others are customer-centric idea powerhouses.

How can you tell who’s performing well as a product manager ? Great product managers manage to combine all the traits we mentioned earlier. They are universally conversant across many disciplines. They’re also engaged and experienced enough to dive deep into any topic when required.

They can balance the strategic and tactical , without resenting having to delve into either. Most importantly, product managers challenge every assumption and ask “why?” at each opportunity; even if they feel the pressure to “ship” and visibly deliver new products.

Countering Complacency as a Product Manager

Another sign of a great product manager is the refusal to settle for mediocrity. All too often, products are considered “done” once they have the basic functionality envisioned in the strategy and are seeing steady revenue and growth.

Product managers must also acknowledge they can’t do everything if they want to achieve greatness. Ask any product manager what some of the most important skills are that get used on the job regularly, and they’ll tell you communication and prioritization. Often, you’re communicating your prioritization.

Prioritizing Product Features

Great product managers also know how to sidestep one of the biggest pitfalls of the profession: offering up opinions instead of relying on data. Product managers never base decisions on “gut feel” or “instinct” alone. While instinct might spark exploration, ultimately, all decisions should be grounded in cold, hard facts.

Luckily product managers don’t have to start from scratch when it comes to deciding how to prioritize features. There are a plethora of prioritization frameworks to select from based on personal preference and corporate goals .  For example, stakeholders can be forced to make hard trade-off decisions using the buy-a-feature method. Or some quick-and-easy wins can be identified by relying on the value vs. complexity framework.

Here’s a popular quick overview of how the popular prioritization framework MoSCoW works.

Best of all, there’s no need to pick a single framework and stick with it. Different ones can be employed at different times, providing a fresh way to gain some clarity about what should jump to the front of the queue.

Prioritizing Your Time

Prioritization doesn’t just apply to lists of features and enhancements. It’s relevant when evaluating how they spend their own time , as well. Product managers need time for essential things and deep thinking. Updating status reports and dashboards don’t qualify. There are some productivity hacks to improve the situation . Follow the 4 D’s: do it, delegate it, defer it, or delete it is a good one for any product manager trying to get back some time.

Perhaps the greatest challenge of product management is that while product managers are responsible for the outcome of the product, they have very little actual power over the process.

Those responsible for implementation, sales, marketing, support, and other key functions don’t work for product managers. They seldom share the same manager. Often the organizational chart doesn’t see a common boss until it gets up to the CEO. Thus, the work can get messy and sometimes political.

To be effective product managers, they must project soft power to achieve their goals and secure success for their products. Product managers must be persistent in building consensus. So everyone involved understands why decisions have been made and are on board with them.

Understand the voice of the customer

Unfortunately, the reality is that there are plenty of times when people don’t cooperate. They want to design by committee. Or there are personality clashes causing problems and delays. At these strenuous times, the voice of the customer is powerful. Customer input can be a product manager’s best friend. Even when it’s incorrect, it is still the customer’s truth. Perception is the reality when it comes to a customer’s opinion.

By fueling the decision-making and priority-setting processes with customers’ own words, product managers can employ evidence-based judgment. It can also be used as the number one defense when roadmaps come under attack .

A newly hired product manager will find themselves “drinking from the firehose” before they’ve even had time to unpack their tchotchkes. In this kind of cross-functional role, there is so much to do all at once. And so much groundwork to lay before it can get done.

Sometimes new product managers may have the urge to make a splash and big impression right out of the gate. But acting too hastily might hurt their credibility before they’ve even had a chance to build it up .

A savvier move is creating a strong foundation for future success by not trying to come in and take over. There are an established culture and pecking order to be unpacked. Identify and understand the players before being overturned.

Learn your product inside-out

Beyond that, intimate knowledge of the current product is an absolute necessity. Product managers should know how it works, why it works that way, and how customers are using it. Spending time with customer service, shadowing sales calls, and meeting actual customers are always right moves in those early days on the job.

Onboarding for product managers isn’t always great and there often isn’t a pre-baked script to follow.

While there are lots of things new product manager hire should consider doing in the first month , some are absolute musts. To get the lay of the land, product managers should strive to meet as many coworkers as possible, reserving any judgment for the moment and merely probing and listening. Bonus listening and learning opportunities are sitting in on customer calls or interviewing friendly customers.

Of course, executing a personal strategy doesn’t just happen. It takes planning and time that is often in short supply. That’s why product managers shouldn’t shortchange themselves. There’s value in setting aside enough time all year long to take care of the tasks likely to fall by the wayside once they get into the thick of it all.

Mapping user journeys

One way product managers can fully understand how their products fit into the lives of their customers is by creating a journey map . This journey begins long before users start using their products. That’s why it’s an excellent exercise for a product manager new on the job.

Journey maps look at user personas versus buyer personas . They contemplate how users first learn about a product’s existence and their path to purchase. The road to purchase includes marketing awareness and education about a product’s value proposition.

From there, the journey map spans the actual acquisition of the product; training, onboarding, and initial usage. Looking at all these steps can uncover friction points. Product managers can address those through new or improved functionality, documentation, proactive support, and customer services.

Journey maps also include the mature stage of usage and how products fit into the everyday routines of their users, revealing additional opportunities for enhanced user experience. It’s also key to finding the most promising possibilities for extending the product to become more useful and loved by users.

A product manager can have the perfect strategy, an exciting roadmap, and reams of market research and data. But that alone doesn’t guarantee success. In business, nothing moves forward without building consensus and managing the expectations of your team of stakeholders . Remember, you are building someone else’s vision, and that you need the help of all of your stakeholders to achieve that. Refine, adapt, accept what you cannot change, and most importantly, over-communicate. Here’s a quick infographic that differentiates two common ways to communicate with your team and stakeholders.

Listening to Your Stakeholders

Product managers must hear and appreciate the concerns and motivations of stakeholders. Their unique perspectives and opinions help shape the company’s overall point of view, while their demands can’t be ignored in plans for the product.

Just as important as speaking the dialects of each constituent group involved in their product’s development, product managers must also be able to understand those dialects. Of course, this requires excellent listening skills. Because information gathering and analysis are such an essential part of the job, any product manager job description must include excellent research and listening skills.

Product managers also need to understand the subtleties of each dialect — both to be sure their teams genuinely appreciate their respective roles. So product managers themselves can quickly identify a potential issue before it becomes a real problem.

Product Managers use narratives to tie everything together because it creates an emotional investment in the outcome. With persuasive storytelling , stakeholders build empathy with users. They see the full benefits a product can deliver and how it fits into the broader context. They begin to care about how the story will end, and they’re willing to help it end happily.

Speaking with Stakeholders

A large component of a product manager’s job is to coordinate among many disparate groups of constituents. Their constituents might be executives, sales reps, customers, development or manufacturing teams, marketing personnel, etc. A product manager ensures that all of these groups understand their roles and are working toward a common strategic goal.

But these groups often speak their own dialects. Executives think and talk in terms of quarterly projections, investor returns, and satisfying industry analysts or Wall Street. While engineers talk about software code and other technical details.

Successful product managers must speak fluently in all of these business dialects for a clear articulation of expectations from each team in a mutually understood context.

Clear two-way communication between product managers and stakeholders is a must for developing and strengthening these relationships. Even if they don’t all like each other, respect and credibility are the minimum threshold required for a functional organization and product development process. To effectively integrate stakeholders, they should be engaged at every point in the process. During the planning phase, it’s best to make them aware of where things are heading and why with a roadmap (which is different than a release plan). Theme based roadmaps are especially useful for storytelling as it rolls up features into the larger, “Why?” theme.

This time spent communicating with stakeholders is both a tone-setter for future discussions as well as an opportunity to get contradicting input early on.

4 Things to Remember About Stakeholder Communication

• Consensus comes from winning over and convincing stakeholders that your roadmap plan is rock solid.
• The narrative must address outstanding concerns.
• The emotion product managers most want to trigger is excitement.
• Focuses on the big picture promise of the product or feature.

If a product manager can’t create and deliver a story that has those elements then they need to go back to the drawing board. It will be too hard to get stakeholders on board. It’s even harder to get them motivated to spend a little more, work a little harder, and take a few more risks.

Maintaining professionalism can be tough. There are plenty of frustrating events in the life of a product manager, and many of them are entirely out of their control.

Here are some product managers struggle with:

• Company vision can be blurred and change quickly so it can be hard to have a proactive strategy when you’re often charged with reactive tasks under small time constraints.
• You’re always under a pressure cooker from the engineering and design teams in a way that can test your confidence and make you feel like an imposter.
• Internal politics are a large part of the role and for many, it can distract from the parts of the role they like better.
• Product managers should be sure they don’t let their emotions get the better of them. Otherwise, they might lose all their hard-won credibility. It’s often prudent to bite your tongue. Product managers shouldn’t find themselves letting any of these things they want to say out loud slip in the workplace, no matter how frustrated they get.
• Too often, product managers assume if it’s anything they can do, it’s something they should do. But these tasks are usually a poor utilization of their unique skillset and could be offloaded to someone else.
• There will always be chaos. Some product managers thrive under the organized-chaos and enjoy it.
• You will need to be an expert in the product. Everyone will turn to you for answers and you will need to consistently come up to bat with your reasoning.

A product manager’s education is never complete. There are always more things to learn and more people to learn from. As the profession has matured, many resources have sprung up to support both newbies and veterans.

When product managers want to delve into the world of self-improvement and career development, there is a slew of books on the topic, providing tips, pointers, and insights from experts.

For those looking for something a little shorter and more timely, a bevy of blogs is the go-to resource for diving into a different topic or learning lessons from the travails of others.

If audio ingestion of product management wisdom is preferable, product management podcasts may be the answer. They’ll turn an uninteresting commute into a learning platform or that refreshing afternoon walk into a master class.

And if instant gratification, memes, and inspirational quotes are just what the doctor ordered, Twitter is always there to deliver. These female product management thought leaders make for great follows. There are also many Slack communities for product managers to chat with their peers.

There are days you’ll love the role and days you’ll wonder why you do it. It’s worth the while when all the pieces come together because even with those challenges it’s one of the best jobs out there. You get to use all your skills, be a vital asset to your team, and use both sides of your brain.

Share on Mastodon

• Certifications
• Our Instructors

What Does a Product Manager Do? Role & Job Description

Carlos González De Villaumbrosia

Updated: August 22, 2024 - 12 min read

Engineers build the product. Designers ensure it’s usable and looks great. Sales and marketing get people to buy it. So, what is the job of the Product Manager? 

We know that Tech companies use Product Managers (PMs) to lead their products to greatness, but precisely what a Product Manager does is not so easy to define, even within organizations that have product teams! The role is quite fluid, and every company has a slightly different interpretation of the skills required and the function of PMs.

That said, certain responsibilities and day-to-day activities apply to most, if not all, Product Managers. We will cover those here, plus information on salaries, career paths, and how to be the best version of a PM. Let’s get started! 

Enroll in Product School's Product Strategy Micro-Certification (PSC)™️

The difference between a good and a great product lies in your Product Strategy, answering vital questions like: Who's the product for? What benefits does it offer? How does it further company objectives?

What Is a Product Manager?

A Product Manager sits at the intersection between business and technology and works as the middle person between the two. Their function is to translate business goals to the engineering teams and to report on product development progress to superiors.

That makes the job sound simple, but sitting at the intersection involves a whole host of tasks, tools, relationships, and strategies. And meetings. Always plenty of meetings!

A common analogy for a PM is that they’re the CEO of the product, but that’s not quite right either. People say this because CEOs have a broad overview of their company, and PMs have a bird’s eye view of the product. They both work with cross-functional teams, elevate the company/product vision, and are ultimately responsible for the company/product.

But calling a PM a CEO bestows them with power that they just don’t have. If an engineer disagrees with the PM, the PM has to use their influence and not their authority to change their mind.

At Product School, we like to think of PMs as orchestra conductors. They know how to play a few instruments, but they can’t play them all! Instead, they guide the musicians in the symphony. They ensure everyone does their part to turn the score—a series of dots and lines on a page—into the music.

Product Manager Job Description

A Product Manager identifies the customer need, aligns new Products or features with larger business objectives, articulates what success looks like for a Product, and rallies a cross-functional team to turn that vision into a reality.

Product Manager Responsibilities:

Determine and prioritize requirements for a specific Product feature 

Research customer pain points and conduct “ root cause analysis ”

Work closely with design teams to improve the holistic customer experience

Outline and execute a detailed Product strategy

Manage cross-functional teams through influence

Manage Product roadmaps and releases

Understand and communicate Product selling points

Identify and fill Product gaps

Generate new product ideas grounded in research and data

Develop Product pricing and positioning strategies in collaboration with Product Marketing and/or Demand Generation teams

Work alongside engineering teams

Work with PR and marketing teams to manage Product launches

Act as a Product spokesperson and represent the company at public events

Product Manager Job Requirements:

Bachelor’s or advanced degree in Business, Marketing, Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field or equivalent experience preferred 

1-5 years of experience in a Product-related role

Previous experience in a Product development or product management position is a plus

Proven Product development ability

Ability to understand technical concepts and work with technical teams is a must 

Technical background with experience in software development or web technologies is a nice to have

Attention to detail and good problem-solving skills

Excellent interpersonal skills

Good written and verbal communication

Exceptional leadership skills

Product Manager salary

Product Managers’ salaries vary almost as much as their responsibilities! Key factors that affect salaries include location, experience, and the scope of the role. In the US, the average salary is $126,000 (based on the average of aggregate data reported to Comparably, Glassdoor, Indeed, Levels FYI, Zippia, and Built In).

How to Land Your First Product Manager Job

There are many paths that lead to Product Management, including transitioning from a related field . If you’re starting from scratch, these steps will help orient you as you make your way to becoming a PM : 

Foundational knowledge: Begin with articles, books , and introductory courses to understand the fundamentals of product management. This includes the product lifecycle, market research, user persona creation, and basic analytics. Reflect on your current skills and interests and identify gaps in your knowledge to help you focus your learning efforts.

Get certified: Obtaining certifications from reputable institutions or industry-recognized programs can also validate your expertise and commitment to the profession, making you a more attractive candidate for advanced product management roles.

Practical application: Apply what you’ve learned by working on personal or volunteer projects. This hands-on experience is invaluable and can be added to your portfolio to showcase your abilities to potential employers.

Build a product portfolio: Creating a product portfolio can help you when searching for a product management job , as it's very likely that a hiring company will ask to see it. 

Networking: Connect with product managers and industry professionals through networking events, online forums, and social media . These connections can provide mentorship, advice, and potential job opportunities.

Job Search Strategy: Tailor your resume and LinkedIn profile to highlight your relevant skills and experiences. When applying for positions, focus on roles that match your skill set and offer growth opportunities.

Interview preparation: Prepare for interviews by practicing common product management interview questions , focusing on behavioral questions, case studies, and problem-solving scenarios.

Land a Product Management job: Remain open to what you still have to learn, seek out mentorship, and learn from your mistakes. Go easy on yourself; you’re just getting started!

Cover Letter Template

Seeking the next step in your Product journey? Use our template to spotlight your strategic brilliance and land your ideal role. Our Product Manager Cover Letter Template is your key to standing out!

Get Started for Free: Advancing Your Skills with Micro-Certifications

Continuous skill development is key to advancing your career in product management. Product School offers free micro-certifications that are perfect for budding product managers, especially the Product Strategy Micro-Certification.

Enrolling in Comprehensive Certification Programs for In-Depth Product Experience

If you're ready to dive in head first and commit to an exciting career in product management, then a comprehensive certification program is a great option. 

The Product Manager Certification (PMC)™ by Product School is designed and led by some of Silicon Valley's most successful product managers and beyond. This certification is designed to equip you with the knowledge, skills, and practical experience needed to excel as a product manager. The program is taught online, live, and in small groups, offering personalized instruction and interaction. Join us and transform your passion for products into a successful career!

A Day in the Life of a Product Manager

The day-to-day tasks of a PM are often focused on a particular product. They manage the feature backlog, review user testing, and coordinate with design and GTM teams to make sure the product aligns with business objectives. Of course, as one product ships, another comes to take its place, so there will be some overlap. 

Review and prioritize the product backlog by estimating the Cost of Delay for two different features of a new mobile banking app.

Feature Prioritization Template

Use this feature prioritization template to get clear direction on which features to include and which to leave out.

Conduct a cross-functional meeting with engineering, marketing, and design teams to discuss the launch strategy for the mobile app.

Product Launch Checklist

Launch is a critical time that can make the difference between product success and failure. Use this checklist to make sure nothing falls through the cracks.

Analyze recent user feedback on the beta version of the app and adjust user flow accordingly.

User Flow Template

Include design early in the Product process with these two user flow diagram templates.

Present stakeholders with a product roadmap presentation for a user portal expected to launch the following quarter, highlighting progress, expected milestones, and potential roadblocks.

Product Roadmap Template

Download our easy-to-use template to help you create your Product Roadmap.

Meet with the UX team to review the banking app design prototypes and ensure alignment with user needs and product goals .

Design Sprint Template

Use design thinking to solve design problems and reduce production risks.

What Product Managers DON’T Do: Comparing PMs to Project Managers, Program Managers, & more.

You may have noticed that PM can stand for more than Product Manager. While this is not the case at Product School —around here, PM stands for one thing and one thing only!—we acknowledge that in the rest of the world, there are other roles, many of which start with P, that get confused with Product Manager.  Let’s set the record straight. 

Program Manager vs. Product Manager

The difference between Product and Program Managers is that Product Manager duties revolve around, not surprisingly, Product, while Program Managers oversee a portfolio of projects or initiatives, ensuring they align with the organization's strategic objectives. The distinction lies in their focal points: Product Managers are centered on product-specific outcomes, innovation, and market fit, whereas Program Managers emphasize cross-project coordination, resource allocation, and achieving broad organizational goals that may or may not revolve around Product. 

Project Manager vs. Product Manager

Product Managers and Project Managers play distinct but complementary roles within a company. While Product Managers are responsible for the vision and strategic direction of a product, focusing on market needs and user satisfaction, Project Managers are tasked with the logistical execution of specific projects, which may or may not be product-based. They focus on meeting deadlines, staying within budget, and managing resources. Their role is crucial in ensuring that the projects necessary to develop and launch a product are completed successfully and efficiently.

Product Owner vs. Product Manager

A Product Owner primarily works within a Scrum team. They focus on maximizing the value of the product by managing the product backlog. They define what needs to be built and prioritize tasks. Taken together, their tasks ensure the team delivers high-value features to the customers.

The official Scrum Guide does not recognize the role of a Product Manager. In Scrum, the primary roles are the Product Owner, Scrum Master, and Development Team. The role of the Product Owner is clearly defined — managing the product backlog and ensuring the team delivers value. The role of a Product Manager, in contrast to that of a Product Owner , is typically found in broader frameworks outside of Scrum. Product Management emerged as businesses recognized the need to oversee the entire lifecycle of a product. This included market research, strategic planning, development, launch, etc. 

Business Analyst vs Product Manager

The difference between Business Analysts and PMs lies in which directions their facing: Inward or outward. Product Managers are the outward-facing strategists who monitor and react to the ever-changing dynamics of the market. Business Analysts, on the other hand, are the internal operatives focused on enhancing and refining the organization's internal processes. A Business Analyst primarily acts as a bridge between IT and business units, focusing on optimizing business solutions. They analyze business processes, identify needs, and propose solutions to improve efficiency and effectiveness. 

A Business Analyst can transition to a Product Manager role. This typically involves leveraging overlapping skills, such as analytical thinking and communication, while also acquiring new skills, like strategic product planning and cross-functional leadership. Gaining practical experience in product management tasks and engaging in targeted training can facilitate this transition.

Product Management Best Practices: How to Be the Best PM You Can Be

Most of the product management you learn is by doing. The theory is very limited.  And that’s why I think it’s very important to be part of the community, to listen and learn from others, listen to podcasts, and read books. — Rapha Cohen , CPO at Google's Waze, in The Product Podcast

Discover the World's Largest Product Management Community

Join Product School's private Slack community and network with over 100,000 PMs.

Rapha Cohen is right. The best way to break into Product is to just get in there! Read books on Product Management , watch webinars , and listen to podcasts . Most of these resources won’t cost you a dime. You can even attend ProductCon , the world's largest Product conference, for free! 

Existing PMs have to do the same thing. There is no single textbook that explains Product Management. On the contrary, PMs learn by doing, and they love sharing what they learn with others. Product Managers level up by staying engaged with the latest thought leadership and applying it to their professional lives.

Over the course of the last decades, some lessons have been learned many times. So many times, in fact, that they have turned into precepts that you have to master if you’re going to call yourself a Product Manager. After all, why reinvent the wheel? If the Product Leaders who have gone before you feel so passionately about these ideas that they write books about them, and the people who read these books find them helpful, they are probably worth knowing about. Here’s a list to get you started:

Best Practices in Product Management

Influence Without Authority : We touched on this one briefly above. The idea here is to lead by example, build trust, and foster a collaborative environment. Use persuasion and relationship-building skills to motivate team members and stakeholders to work towards common goals.

Lean Startup : Focus on building a minimum viable product (MVP) to test assumptions and gather user feedback quickly. Iterate based on real-world data to minimize waste and accelerate learning.

User-Centric Design : Prioritize the needs, behaviors, and experiences of users throughout the product development process. Conduct user research, test usability, and continuously incorporate user feedback to create products that genuinely solve user problems.

OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) : Set clear, measurable goals (Objectives) and define specific, quantifiable outcomes (Key Results) to track progress. Align OKRs across teams to ensure everyone is working towards the same strategic objectives and can measure success effectively.

Product-Led Growth : Use the product itself as the primary driver of customer acquisition, retention, and expansion. Focus on delivering a product experience that provides immediate value, encourages user engagement, and naturally leads to growth through word-of-mouth and network effects.

Agile Methodology : Adopt iterative and incremental development cycles, commonly known as sprints, to allow for flexibility and continuous improvement. Emphasize collaboration, adaptability, and responding to change over following a fixed plan, ensuring the product evolves based on real-time feedback and market conditions.

Never Underestimate the Product Manager's Function

A Product Manager is the driving force behind a product’s success, balancing the demands of business strategy, user experience, and technical execution. Whether orchestrating cross-functional teams, conducting market research, or guiding the product lifecycle from concept to launch, the PM’s influence is felt at every stage. So, when you think about what makes a product succeed, remember—never underestimate the function of a Product Manager. They’re not just managing a product; they’re shaping the future.

Product Manager Certification (PMC)™

Land your first Product Management job by building the skills you need to get hired and succeed.

Updated: August 22, 2024

Enjoyed the article? You might like this too

Career Development

How to Become a Product Manager: No Experience? No Problem.

Discover how to become a Product Manager: Master essential skills, navigate the career path, and seamlessly transition into this rewarding role.

15 Product Management Books Recommended by Product Leaders

We asked top Product Leaders to recommend their favorite product management books. Compile an inspiring reading list with these expert recs!

18 Types of Product Managers: Entry-Level to Executive

Whether you’re starting out, specializing, or ready to spearhead strategy, there’s a type of product manager role that’s right for you.

Subscribe to The Product Blog

Discover Where Product is Heading Next

Share this post

By sharing your email, you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Service

• Share on Twitter
• Share on LinkedIn
• Share on Facebook
• Share on Pinterest
• Share through Email

Product Manager Job Description, Roles, Responsibilities In 2021

Ben Aston is an online media entrepreneur and founder of Black & White Zebra, an indie media company on a mission to help people and organizations succeed. Ben applies his expertise in design and strategy to enable businesses to deliver innovative products and services that delight customers. Ben is passionate about understanding customer needs through design research, identifying opportunities based on those insights, and empowering designers and technologists to create solutions. He is driven to develop and uncover new opportunities for clients, establishing strong connections with their customers through product solutions that create lasting value.

What, exactly, does a Product Manager do? Actually, the Product Manager job description varies but there is a common set of skills and responsibilities for all Product Managers. The following list of 10 guidelines about a Product Manager’s job role will give you a solid sense of how you may fit into this dynamic position. […]

What, exactly, does a Product Manager do? Actually, the Product Manager job description varies but there is a common set of skills and responsibilities for all Product Managers. The following list of 10 guidelines about a Product Manager’s job role will give you a solid sense of how you may fit into this dynamic position.

1. Product Managers Must Understand the Problem

You must know what problem your new product is supposed to solve, and how.

No matter the market, no matter the customer, seldom does a product succeed that doesn’t address a real human need. As a PM, you must clearly and completely understand what problem your product is supposed to solve, and how it will solve it uniquely. If there are already other similar alternatives in the marketplace, why should people buy yours? What is the single, unique, compelling reason to buy your product instead of everybody else’s? Without knowing this, you cannot be a successful Product Manager.

But if you can research your product’s strengths and weaknesses, do the same for your competition, and communicate real customers’ needs to your design and production teams, you are on your way to delivering innovative, high-quality products that succeed. And that is the goal of the Product Manager: Successful product innovation and sales.

2. A Product Manager Is a Valuable Resource

Product Managers provide vision, design and production management , and user experience skills.

Product Managers thrive at the intersection of user experience, product development, and business. They love making new connections with customers, they love making new products, and they love making profits and growing brands.

One of the biggest roles of the Product Manager (PM) is to speak from the user’s standpoint. There are enough engineers, marketers, salespeople, and upper managers on the project already. Somebody needs to stand up for the customer’s needs and concerns. That’s one important part of the PM’s job. Through one-on-one interviews, surveys, product testing, social media, and anything you can think of, you need to get the customer’s viewpoint and make it a part of your product’s design process.

Stay in-the-know on all things product management including trends, how-tos, and insights - delivered right to your inbox.

• Your email *
• By submitting this form, you agree to receive our newsletter and occasional emails related to The Product Manager. You can unsubscribe at any time. For more details, please review our Privacy Policy . We're protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
• Comments This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

3. Product Management Requires Many Skills

Several personal qualities make up a good Product Manager.

Good Product Managers often come from a variety of disciplines or fields. Many times these areas and disciplines are related to the kinds of products they end up managing. There is a simple reason for this. A Product Manager has a hands-on role in the vision, research, design, development, marketing, sales, launch, support, and final wind-down of a product. In short, from concept to delivery to end-of-life, the PM is the product leader — some say the CEO — of the product.

The skillset of a good Product Manager includes:

• Logical thinking
• Strategic planning
• Productive curiosity in research
• Empathetic customer interviewing
• Insightful market analysis
• Creative problem solving
• Visionary feature planning
• Disciplined task scheduling
• Hands-on production ability
• Organized business habits
• Proactive daily communications
• Collaborative team building

That’s a lot to expect of one person. Almost nobody has everything. But a healthy sampling of these in your toolbox might make you an excellent candidate for a Product Manager position. Most of all you must be curious, organized, and communicative. You must be devoted to research, addicted to organization, and hooked on communication. These are the essence of a PM’s day.

4. The Product Manager Has Many Duties

Since the scope of the PM is broad, so is the range of responsibilities.

Here is a list of the many things a PM must do throughout their career:

• Determine customer needs — understand their problems: survey, interview, and hold product focus groups with customers
• Analyze customer data and distribute reports to relevant departments
• Specify market research requirements
• Review current product features and specifications
• Compare competition’s products to company’s offerings
• Define the vision of new products
• Recommend future products and product lines
• Prepare return-on-investment (ROI) analyses for new product proposals
• Drive the direction of new products
• Develop a Roadmap of the new product lifecycle, from concept to end-of-life
• Define product development communications policies
• Meet personally with everyone involved, including a selection of customers
• Determine product pricing using all business data and projected sales
• Plan marketing, advertising, and sales strategies with the appropriate departments
• Review and adjust inventory production schedules and levels Define time schedules with engineering and production
• Coordinate product testing and quality assurance
• Assume a hands-on approach to any and all project tasks when necessary
• Keep all teams fully informed on project status and all relevant data
• Brief management periodically on status, budget, milestones, and business goal attainment
• Assign and schedule employees and keep track of employment results
• Manage personnel friction and problems as they arise
• After launch, keep on top of analytics and keep all others informed
• Maintain responsibility for the product through to the end-of-life cycle, as tasked
• Repeat the process, or manage multiple products in parallel

5. The Product Manager Communicates With All Relevant Teams

The Product Manager joins all the product’s teams with the customer’s needs.

There are several teams involved in the creative design and successful deployment of a new product. They must all be brought into the loop from the very beginning of the process and kept up-to-date throughout the lifecycle of the product. They must all stay in sync and on task.

• Engineering, IT
• Customer Service
• Quality Assurance
• Customers and Users

6. There is Not Just One Kind of Product Manager

Every product requires a different product management strategy.

While mostly associated with technology products these days, the role of Product Manager has been around for a long time. There are various levels of seniority available, providing a clear career path.

• Junior Product Manager: Definition varies widely throughout the various industries, as does pay. Assists in the hand-on management of the product. Reports to the Senior Product Manager. Acts as a buffer between the Senior Product Manager and the rest of the team. 1-4 years of experience required.
• Associate Product Manager: Assists and reports to the Senior Product Manager. Generally has wide creative latitude and a certain degree of decision making authority. 3-5 years professional experience usually required. There is a great deal of overlap between an Associate Product Manager and a Junior Product Manager, sometimes just the title is different.
• Senior Product Manager: Head product manager. Considered the CEO of the product. Often makes a six-figure salary. Takes responsibility for the entire project. Extensive successful experience required.

In addition to levels of seniority, product managers may also specialize in a specific type of product management, such as platform product managers and data product managers .

If you want to find out if this career is worthwhile (in terms of money), read our salary guide, and discover how much a product manager makes.

7. All Industries Need Product Managers

Any company that produces a product has to manage that production.

Realistically, any industry that produces a product needs Product Managers. Makes sense, doesn’t it? Not all industries have a history of using PMs, though. Technology, as stated above, is a teeming source of PM jobs. IT Product Managers, Website Product Managers, Technical Product Managers, the list goes on and on.

The entertainment industry has become a hotbed of product management jobs.   As the decades-long demise of the Hollywood studio system continues and the grip of cable television disintegrates, more independent news, streaming video, music, and social media production requires vast numbers of individual projects to manage. Each needs a Product Manager.

Healthcare, banking, finance, and the growing Internet of Things (IoT) are more examples of industries that are producing product after product into the marketplace. Jobs are plentiful, if you are ready.

8. Product Management Has a Future

There is no chance that companies will stop developing products for sale.

If you’re looking for a future in Product Management, creativity will still be required in 2020 and beyond. So will people management, complex problem solving, and critical thinking, according to a World Economic Forum report. These are all defining parts of a Product Manager’s day. Investing in your product management skills now will help you build a stable, rewarding, and long-lasting career.

9. Product Managers Don’t Always Do It All Themselves

Not every Product Manager is a lone wolf. Often there are teams of PMs.

Every company has a unique way of doing business. Not every company gives a PM the autonomy that other firms give. Many times the role of Product Manager is divided between multiple people. For example, there may be a Product Marketing Manager, a Product Development Manager, and a Product Launch Manager, all on the same project. These must coordinate and keep each other informed of their unique research, goals, and all other product information, in addition to maintaining a unified front to the other departments, the management, and the customer base.

Sometimes decision-making power is not granted to the Product Management team. This decision makes it necessary to give presentations more often to upper management, and to justify the PM’s positions more thoroughly than if they had the authority to go ahead without seeking permission. This requirement is neither bad nor good, it is simply a business control decision based on the structure of the company. It can slow down production, but the upper management knows this, so it is not an issue the PM needs to worry about.

10. The Product Manager Develops the Product Roadmap

The vision, features, and feature definitions are laid down by the PM.

How your product goes from concept to profitable release, then all the way to end-of-life, is described in detail by the product Roadmap . The PM is responsible for developing this roadmap.

The Roadmap tells not only the story of design and production but details how the product and the process will maximize bottom-line business value for the company. It’s not enough to innovate.

The product must be profitable, too, if that is the business goal of the product. If you are a Product Brand Manager and the purpose of the product is to raise brand awareness, then the product must be measurably successful in that category. This achievement determines your success or failure as a Product Manager.

Some believe that Project Manager is the most exciting job on the planet.

What excites you in a job? Is it constant action, never-ending learning, continuous interaction with customers, engineers, marketers, salespersons, management and everyone else involved in new product development? How about shepherding an innovative new product from concept to delivery and beyond? Then the Product Manager Job Description is what you are looking for, and you’ve found it here.

What do you think?

Is the Project Manager job description for you? Do you have the qualities it takes? Did this post move you to take action towards a Project Manager Job?

What Is A Portfolio Roadmap? How To Create Yours In 7 Steps

The OKR Roadmap: What It Is & How to Use It

Product Strategy: What It Is, and How to Nail It

Everything You Need to Write a Product Manager Job Description

Product managers are responsible for coordinating teams to meet deadlines, researching market trends & ensuring successful product releases.

Whether you’ve hit an initial growth spurt and are looking for your first product manager or you’re building out a dedicated team, it’s crucial that you have the right people in place to lead product development. 

Product managers play a major role in making or breaking product releases, so the designated individual or individuals must be able to set long-term growth goals, roadmap the product life cycle, pitch and prioritize features and set and analyze metrics that can help develop and course correct products throughout their life cycle.

As with any role, to attract the right people, you need to write a job description that resonates with top talent, which brings us here today.

If you know where to start your research, feel free to click the links below to jump ahead. Otherwise, read on.

Access our entire library of templates for your open roles.

Table of Contents

• What Does a Product Manager Do?

Five Product Manager Job Description Examples

Product manager job description template, product manager salary information, what does a product manager do.

Product managers are similar to project managers in that they are responsible for coordinating multiple teams to meet deadlines and ensure quality results. Unlike most project managers, however, product managers play a pivotal strategic role.

Simply put, product managers are tasked with guiding product development throughout the lifecycle, from initial concept to release and maintenance. While the exact nature of the role will vary by company, most product managers have several core responsibilities:

Product Ideation

Good ideas can come from just about anywhere, and product managers are responsible for finding and acting on them. From analyzing current market trends and competitor offerings to interviewing internal stakeholders and customers, product managers are tasked with identifying and developing ideas that will eventually become new products or features. As such, the product manager must have a deep understanding of user needs, business objectives and available resources.

Product Development

It takes a village to build a great product, and the product manager is the mayor. She must liaise with multiple teams within the business, most often software engineers, UX designers, sales, marketing and senior leadership. Every team plays a valuable role in product development, and it’s the job of the product manager to ensure that all those moving pieces are headed in the same direction.

Feature Management

Scope creep can derail even the best laid plans, so product managers must be vigilant in prioritizing features that will provide the most value to both end users and the business and eliminating anything that won’t pay long-term dividends. This often involves moderating disagreements, which can require significant managerial experience.  

Product Release

Actually building the product is just the first step. Next comes the release, and this is where having a great product manager on your side can make all the difference. This is another area where the product manager must collaborate with a host of teams. From the technical requirements involved with actually launching the product to coordinating with sales and marketing, an efficient and organized release is crucial to product success.

For smaller companies, a product manager does not generally become a designated role until the business faces significant pain points with scaling product development and implementing a cohesive vision.

Often times, it makes the most sense to hire internally for this role because it can be difficult to find someone externally who has the experience needed to grow your specific product.

We’ve gathered five great product manager job descriptions examples from our seven online communities . While these are examples of real job postings, we’ve redacted some information to protect the privacy of the companies that posted them.

Keep in mind that we’ve created a generalized product manager job description template below the examples to further help you write the most effective product manager job description.

Product Manager Job Description: Example 1

We are looking for an experienced, hands-on Product Manager who can help us define our product vision and lead its execution. In this role you will lead the design and implementation of systems and products that maximize the program’s impact and optimize their operations. These systems will use advanced data analytics, predictive modeling, and business logic to deliver optimal pricing & inventory management recommendations.

You will combine strategic and business thinking, analytical thinking, analytical and technical knowledge to generate insights, turn them into system design and see them through implementation. You will ensure smooth execution, analysis, and optimization of global pricing and inventory management initiatives. Additionally, you will have exposure and visibility to senior executives and cross-functional leaders.

Responsibilities:

• You will manage the short and long-term roadmap for all pricing, revenue, and inventory management applications.
• Work closely with key internal partners, including software engineering, data science, and strategy to guide prioritization and make sure that product development is focused and impactful.
• Solicit ideas and feedback, gather requirements, write specs, craft wireframes and workflows, and coordinate cross-functionally.
• You will translate business needs into requirement specifications for integration with cross-functional systems.
• Partner with other [redacted] to streamline system integrations and improve existing business processes.
• You will drive strategic product decisions via evaluation of a meticulous retrospective and prospective analysis of product and revenue performance.
• Educate [redacted] members on new functionality and scheduled features.

Requirements:

• BA/BS in Engineering or Economics/Physics/Psychology/Math (MS is a plus).
• 3+ years of product management or product marketing experience at a consumer or enterprise technology company.
• Someone with product design, software development, or interaction design experience.
• Data first philosophy but can also make decisions in ambiguous situations
• Additional experience in [redacted].
• Ability to initiate and drive projects to completion with autonomy.
• Ability to clearly and concisely communicate with technical and non-technical partners across all levels of the organization.
• Experience with JIRA, Confluence, Google Suite (Sheets, Docs, Slides).
• Familiarity with SQL, Python, is a plus.

Product Manager Job Description: Example 2

[redacted] is seeking an experienced Product Manager for the growth of its [redacted] Team. The successful candidate will be responsible for bringing new product lines to customers in an engaging and functional way, while collaborating with other product stakeholders. The Product Manager will work creatively and pragmatically to write out product user stories that will be key in the product development process. Knowledge of the product development lifecycle is vital to this role. If you understand the [redacted] market and the [redacted] tools that are being used in that space, we are interested in speaking with you.

You have a proven track record of taking ownership and delivering results in a fast-paced, dynamic environment. Your excellent interpersonal, presentation, written and verbal communication, problem-solving, and organizational skills contribute to your continued success in this role as you demonstrate your remarkable Agile/Scrum coaching competency. You maximize customer value and business impact by ensuring the team is focused on shipping the right product to users. Your day to day will include but not be limited to the following.

• Collect and prioritize product data by conducting customer interviews
• Gather and analyze data on competing products to determine where to compete effectively and present recommendations to the Head of Product
• Plan product roll outs with clear guidelines and documentation supporting product releases
• Oversee the product line’s life cycle and anticipate any problems and communicate those to the team and organization/customer if needed
• Manage product metrics that will be clearly defined with new product lines
• Oversee the planning and delivery of product releases across multiple teams
• Bring new products to market by analyzing proposed product requirements and product development programs; preparing return-on-investment analyses; establishing time schedules with Engineering Team and Head of Product
• Provide information for management by preparing short-term and long-term product feature documents and metrics
• Connect and raise awareness around your team’s product through active and ongoing communication with key cross-functional stakeholders to ensure alignment

Qualifications:

• BA or BS undergraduate degree
• 3+ years of product management experience
• Significant experience working for a [redacted] company
• Proven track record in launching new products/services
• Solid project management experience within an Agile framework
• Demonstrated success in handling end-to-end product lifecycle and ability to drive product planning, development, and launch

Product Manager Job Description: Example 3

Reporting to our VP of Product, you will own the execution of our product roadmap and discovery process, and solve interesting problems. As our Product Owner, you'll be responsible for setting the development roadmap for product enhancements and executing on that roadmap. You will develop and drive business requirements. You'll work with product managers to translate market trends, customer needs, and competitive intelligence into innovative deliverables that solve customer problems, and evangelize those innovations internally and externally.

As our Product Owner, you'll be responsible for:

• Translate a product vision and strategy into tactical plans
• Define, measure and improve key product metrics
• Align cross-functional stakeholders across the organization, from Sales and Operations to Marketing and Executives
• Rigorously leverage data and analytics to drive decisions, features and design
• Collaborate with Leadership, Engineering, Marketing, Finance and Accounting on new and ongoing initiatives
• Work with Customer Success to ingest customer feedback and develop future improvements
• Present recommendations and accompanying analyses to leadership
• Wear many hats and potentially work on a variety of other PM projects

So what kind of person are we looking for in this role? We have a pretty unique culture here at [redacted], and the person who will be successful in this role will be:

• Results-Driven: Must have a proven record of driving results in high-growth companies and must have an inner drive to succeed
• Work Independently and with a Team: Some people work best individually and some as part of a team. The ideal candidate is a chameleon who can succeed both on their own and work within a team-oriented, collaborative environment.
• Time Management Guru: The Product Owner role is one that will pull you in multiple directions and you must be able to prioritize and manage your time. The ideal candidate will naturally be able to differentiate urgent, important, and urgently important tasks.
• 3-5 years of product management background with success stories, preferably in [redacted].
• Ability to build alignment around the product roadmap. You should have an assertive, direct communication style with a flair for inspiring and motivating others.
• Experience leading substantial aspects of product management. That means identifying opportunities, defining a product roadmap, creating business cases, driving execution activities, and measuring results.
• Experience translating objectives into specific tactical plans. You’ll need to define, measure, and improve key product metrics.

Product Manager Job Description: Example 4

At [redacted], individuals fully own their roles and are charged with meaningfully driving results. We work fast and continuously optimize our products to reach [redacted].

We recently expanded our product offering [redacted]. Now, we’re looking for an experienced Product Manager (PM) to grow the product in ways that differentiate us from the competition and drive value for our users. When we say ‘grow the product’, we’re talking 5x [redacted]! We’ve built an eager and smart team to support our [redacted] product, and we know this will be an exciting opportunity for someone to own the strategic direction of our next big endeavor.

• The PM role is an ideal opportunity for someone who is ready to own the strategy and vision for [redacted] with huge growth goals.
• To engage and collaborate with smart people from across the organization to create and implement the product roadmap, while also communicating progress to all stakeholders and senior leadership.
• Accountability of this role includes the autonomy to define the “what” of our [redacted] product by understanding the competition, users and company abilities and constraints.
• Manage our growing product team according to our company values. This includes monthly one-on-one meetings, setting professional development goals and ensuring overall quality performance toward achieving product goals.

The Ideal Candidate

• Bachelor’s degree is required.
• Previous experience as a Product Manager at a [redacted], with demonstrated success. We need someone who can hit the ground running, so examples of strategic thinking and effective communication to senior leadership are essential.
• Previous experience mentoring and leading a team. We believe in the well-being of our team, so capable leaders are extremely important.
• Ability and tendency to balance the value of qualitative and quantitative data. We value data as much as the next tech company, but you’re here for a reason, as is our entire intelligent team, so we always weigh both.
• Ability to own the entire UX. We work externally with multiple partners to ensure an excellent user experience, as well as with our internal teams. Relationship management, ability to work effectively with external teams, and overall accountability are crucial.
• Prior [redacted] experience. 
• Ability to prioritize initiatives and communicate clearly across the organization. At [redacted], we always have a lot going on, and we rely on our teams to have the skills to navigate the best way to accomplish our goals.

Product Manager Job Description: Example 5

[redacted] is seeking a Product Manager to help guide the progress of our new product. 

We're excited to interview candidates who love product management, are creative problem solvers, look for ways to be efficient around every corner, love beautiful design, and care about user-experience driven design. 

This role has a potential promotional pathway to head of product, managing a team of designers and engineers.

What You’ll Do

• Strategize & research around customer needs to develop feature lists, user stories, and the product roadmap.
• Define, deliver, and roll out products that help [redacted] ambassadors, brand clients, and the internal team.
• Help execute the vision of the CEO and translate business needs into beautiful, usable products.
• Oversee the visual design and user-experience of [redacted].
• Deeply understand competitive landscape and market trends.
• Oversee product-related project management between our Product Designer, Engineering Team, COO, and CEO.
• Set and track metrics/KPIs and communicate them to leadership and internal team.
• Assist in the go-to-market strategy and rollouts of all products.

Who You Are

• 3+ years of agile Product Management experience.
• 2+ years of previous consumer-facing product experience required.
• MBA a plus, but not required.
• Intimate [redacted] knowledge a major plus.
• Experience in working with products for [redacted] demographics.
• Comfortable using project management tools like a Gantt chart or Excel.
• Software experience with: Sketch, Adobe, XCode, Illustrator, and other design tools required.
• You should be comfortable and have skills around developer management, and navigating engineering team dynamics.
• Data-oriented for decision making and supporting arguments.

While the previous examples are unique to the companies that posted them, several traits and common denominators do jump out.

With this information in hand, we’ve compiled a product manager job description template for you to use and tailor to your specific needs. Again, this is a job description template , so make sure to customize it to reflect your unique company, culture and mission. We've left several fields blank for you to input the exact experience and skills you're looking for.

Company Bio

[Use this section to provide a high level overview of your company, culture, perks and benefits, career development opportunities and anything else that will get candidates excited about your company.]

Responsibilities

• Build a thorough product roadmap that prioritizes certain features and takes into consideration the entire product lifecycle, the contributing team members and accounts for potential resource limitations.
• Organize, execute and document detailed product releases across multiple teams, including [insert relevant teams] .
• Provide feedback and recommendations with metrics to back your decisions and present findings to key stakeholders and executives.
• Gather insights on product success and user experience by interviewing customers, tracking market trends and analyzing competing products.
• Set long-term growth goals and analyze and relay product-related metrics and revenue performance to key stakeholders.
• Clearly communicate product objectives to internal teams with varying levels of technical and non-technical knowledge.
• Coordinate with internal teams, including software engineers, data, operations, sales, marketing, customer success, finance and senior leadership.
• Mentor the product team by hiring, training and mentoring new team members, establishing professional development goals and ensuring deadlines are met.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in engineering, economics, physics, psychology, math or related field.
• X years of product manager or product marketing experience
• X years experience with [insert your product management software], and designer software, like  [insert software your company uses] .
• Exceptional track record of launching products/services and managing their success on an end-to-end product lifecycle.
• Excellent written, verbal, interpersonal and presentation skills with adaptable teaching styles.
• Strong metric goal setting and analysis with the ability to translate results to stakeholders and confidently recommend actionable product growth initiatives.
• Experience in [insert industry] is a plus

Hopefully these examples and template have helped you become more confident in writing a product manager job description. Before we close out and send you on your way,  there’s one final part of the job description that you really can’t leave out; the salary information.

To help you determine an appropriate salary range that will be in line with candidate expectations, we’ve gathered the average salary information for product managers in  seven of the country’s top employment markets . Each bullet links to our local compensation analysis tool in case you want to research further.

• Austin, TX: $111,136
• Boston, MA: $117,905
• Chicago, IL: $107,396
• Colorado: $106,063
• Los Angeles, CA: $116,319
• New York, NY: $125,441
• Seattle, WA: $131,200

Cross Market Average Salary for Product Managers: $116,494

How to reduce turnover while increasing engagement and inclusion for remote

Recent Job Descriptions Articles

What is a Product Manager ?

A Product Manager (PM) is a professional who is responsible for the development and success of a specific product or product line within a company. The role of a PM is to understand the market, the customers, and the competition, and use that knowledge to guide the product development process. This includes conducting market research, identifying opportunities for new products or features, and working with cross-functional teams to bring those products to market. A PM must also be able to communicate the product vision and strategy to all stakeholders, including the development team, sales and marketing, and executive leadership. In short, a PM is the driving force behind a product's success, from the initial concept to its final launch and beyond. The role of a PM can vary depending on the size and type of company. In a small startup, a PM may wear many hats and be involved in a wide range of tasks. In a larger corporation, the role may be more specialized and focused on a specific product line. Regardless of the company size, the PM is responsible for the product's overall success, and must be able to work effectively with cross-functional teams and navigate the organization to get things done. A PM must possess a unique combination of skills and qualities. They must be able to think strategically and understand the big picture, while also being able to dive into the details and understand how a product works. They must be able to communicate effectively with all stakeholders, including technical and non-technical team members. They must also be able to manage multiple projects and priorities, and make tough decisions when necessary. If you possess these skills and have a passion for creating great products, a career as a PM may be a great fit for you.

Get Product Manager Jobs Emailed to You

By signing up, you agree to the terms of use and privacy policy

Product Manager Job Description Template

Job overview.

Are you a strategic and analytical problem solver with a passion for bringing innovative products to market? We are seeking a top-notch Product Manager to join our dynamic team. As the voice of the customer, you will lead cross-functional teams to deliver exceptional products that meet market needs and drive business growth.

Product Manager Responsibilities & Duties

• Lead the development and implementation of product strategy and roadmaps
• Conduct market and customer research to inform product decisions
• Define product requirements and prioritize feature backlogs
• Partner with engineering, design, and other teams to ensure successful product launches
• Analyze product performance and make data-driven recommendations for improvements
• Collaborate with sales, marketing, and support teams to drive product adoption and growth

Product Manager Qualifications & Skills

• MBA or advanced degree
• Experience in SaaS, mobile, or other technology-driven products
• Experience working with international teams and in global markets
• Experience with A/B testing and experimentation
• Prior experience in a leadership role
• Bachelor's degree in a related field and 5+ years of product management experience
• Proven track record of delivering successful products in a fast-paced, cross-functional environment
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Ability to influence cross-functional teams without direct authority
• Strong analytical skills and experience using data to drive product decisions
• Knowledge of Agile methodologies and product development lifecycle

Ready to post a job using this template?

Related job descriptions.

See job descriptions similar to a Product Manager

Account Supervisor

Business developer, business development director, business development manager, category manager, channel manager, commercial director, commercial lines manager, digital marketing manager, fashion coordinator, fashion marketer, internet marketing manager, ready to start hiring.

Looking to hire the best talent for your company? Post your job to reach qualified candidates in just minutes. With our user-friendly platform, you can create a compelling job description and start receiving applications right away.

Powered by Web Scribble Solutions , Inc.

Welcome to the Kaplan Community Career Center

Salary data is provided by Web Scribble and comes from the Department of Labor and thousands of companies’ job postings.

Upload Your Resume - Increase your visibility with employers

Explore Career Guides - Empower and shape your professional future

By clicking "Sign me up", you are signing up with WebScribble Solutions, Inc. and agree to WebScribble's Terms of Use and Privacy Policy .

By clicking "Create Account", you are creating an account with Web Scribble Solutions, Inc. and agree to Web Scribble's Terms of Use and Privacy Policy .

Create Your Kaplan Community Career Center Job Seeker Account

By clicking "Register", you are registering for services with Web Scribble Solutions, Inc. and agree to Web Scribble's Terms of Use and Privacy Policy .

Get discovered by our corporate partners!

• Elevate your visibility with a Job Seeker account.
• Kaplan recruiters will vet your resume and connect you with partner employers.
• Get one step closer to the role of your dreams.

DEI in 2024 is a more polarized topic than in 2020 – Check out our recent survey and get the insights Download the report

• HR Toolkit |
• HR Templates |
• Job descriptions |
• IT and Development job descriptions |

Product Manager job description

A Product Manager is the person who identifies customer needs and more prominent business objectives for a particular project, articulates what success looks like in this case study and rallies team members to help turn that vision into reality.

Thanos was COO at Workable. He writes about data protection and compliance. Formerly with IBM and Accenture.

Refreshed on

February 6, 2022

Reviewed by

Eftychia Karavelaki

Senior Recruitment Manager

This Product Manager job description template is optimized for posting on online job boards or careers pages and is easy to customize for your company.

Product Manager responsibilities include:

• Creating buy-in for the product vision both internally and with key external partners
• Developing product pricing and positioning strategies
• Translating product strategy into detailed requirements and prototypes

Want to generate a unique job description?

Looking for a job.

We are looking for an experienced Product Manager who is passionate about building products that customers love. You will join a dynamic and fast-paced environment and work with cross-functional teams to design, build and roll-out products that deliver the company’s vision and strategy.

Responsibilities

• Gain a deep understanding of customer experience, identify and fill product gaps and generate new ideas that grow market share, improve customer experience and drive growth
• Create buy-in for the product vision both internally and with key external partners
• Develop product pricing and positioning strategies
• Translate product strategy into detailed requirements and prototypes
• Scope and prioritize activities based on business and customer impact
• Work closely with engineering teams to deliver with quick time-to-market and optimal resources
• Drive product launches including working with public relations team, executives, and other product management team members
• Evaluate promotional plans to ensure that they are consistent with product line strategy and that the message is effectively conveyed
• Act as a product evangelist to build awareness and understanding
• Represent the company by visiting customers to solicit feedback on company products and services

Requirements and skills

• Proven work experience in product management or as an associate product manager
• Proven track record of managing all aspects of a successful product throughout its lifecycle
• Proven ability to develop product and marketing strategies and effectively communicate recommendations to executive management
• Solid technical background with understanding and/or hands-on experience in software development and web technologies
• Strong problem solving skills and willingness to roll up one’s sleeves to get the job
• Skilled at working effectively with cross functional teams in a matrix organization
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• MS/BS degree in Computer Science, Engineering or equivalent preferred

Post this Product Manager job to over 200 job boards at once.

Frequently asked questions, related job descriptions.

• Associate Product Manager job description
• Senior Product Manager job description
• Product Owner job description

Related Interview Questions

• Product Manager interview questions and answers
• Product Designer interview questions and answers
• Management interview questions and answers

Related Topics

• How to find Product Managers with Boolean search strings
• Ace tech recruiting: advice from recruiters and candidates
• Hiring tech workers when you're not on their A-list

Available in

Jump to section, share on mastodon.