Product Manager Career Matrix
Introduction
I’ve developed this career matrix over the years and use it with every product manager that I work with. As a product leader, it provides a consistent framework for evaluating and coaching team members. I typically create a copy of the matrix for each product manager and ask them to rank themselves across every skill. We use that as a basis for goals and professional development. One key point is to talk through any areas where your evaluation as a manager is different than the product managers.
Job Levels
As companies grow, their compensation plan should formalize. This career matrix is based on the idea that there is a structure of some sort that you need to coordinate with. You may need to adapt the labels or number of levels to match your company’s structure at the moment. If your company doesn’t have a job level structure or formal compensation bands, this can start to build a structure to ensure that you’re paying consistently across your team.
It is critical that you have both a management and an individual contributor track so that your team members do not feel that management is the only path forward.
| Job Level | Job Title | Typical Years of Experience | Track |
|---|---|---|---|
| PM1 | Associate Product Manager | 0-1 | Individual Contributor |
| PM2 | Junior Product Manager | 1-2 | Individual Contributor |
| PM3 | Product Manager | 2-4 | Individual Contributor |
| PM4 | Senior Product Manager | 3-5 | Individual Contributor |
| PM5 | Principle Product Manager | 5+ | Individual Contrubitor |
| PM6 | Group Product Manager | 5+ | Manager |
| PM7 | Director of Product | 7+ | Manager |
Job Skills
This career matrix separates skills into five different categories and explores how those skills should be manifested at various levels of experience. I use the following rating system for each skill:
Learning the skill (L) — Actively learning a skill by observing, reading, and listening.
Practicing with assistance (P) — Using a skill in public, but with support from a more senior team member to provide feedback and guidance.
Doing solo (S) — Able to use the skill without support with little need for feedback or support.
Mastering (M) — Strong grasp of the skill with no need for feedback or support.
Teaching / Mentoring (T) — Expert in the skill and able to effectively teach and support team members who are learning the skill.
Core Product
| Skill | Description | PM1 | PM2 | PM3 | PM4 | PM5 | PM6 | PM7 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Collaboration | Demonstrates a strong ability to collaborate on projects. This means everything from working together to defining a problem, the solution, and the outcomes we are trying to achieve. | L | P | S | M | M | T | T |
| Creative Problem Solving | Curate solutions to problems in new and creative ways, always focused on getting the best result possible for our customers and the business. | L | P | S | M | M | T | T |
| Discovery | Discovery is the process for learning what problems exist for our customers and how important they are to solve. Includes understanding competitors, market trends, customer needs, and our business strategy. Ability to interview customers, collect feedback from stakeholders, and synthesize learnings from gathered data. | L | P | S | M | M | T | T |
| Design Prototyping | Design Prototyping is the process for going from a problem to a solution. It involves working closely with UX and Dev to explore potential solutions and vetting them with internal stakeholders, customers, and potential customers. This also encompases defining the requirements of what a solution delivers. | L | P | S | M | M | T | T |
| Work Breakdown | Work breakdown is the art of taking a design and turning it into actionable work for the dev team. This includes both doing high level estimates and more specific epic and story breakdown and acceptance criteria. | L | P | S | M | M | T | T |
| Manging Scope | Managing scope is the art of deciding how much of a solution we should deliver for the current iteration. | L | P | S | M | T | T | |
| Prioritization | Prioritization is the process of determining what work is important. It is a balance of what customers need, what the business wants, what is strategic to the product, current technical needs, and risk and compliance considerations. | L | P | S | M | M | T | T |
| Roadmap | Build a roadmap that illustrates the work we want to accomplish over the next few quarters. Be able to define the problem, the current scope, business value, and desired outcomes. | L | P | S | M | T | T | |
| Product Vision | Define a product vision and strategy that aligns with the business strategy and resonates with internal stakeholders and customers | L | P | S | M | T | T | |
| Documentation | Create technical documentation about how a feature works. | L | P | S | M | M | T | |
| Product Support | Assisting the Live and CSM teams with complex production situations and use cases. | L | P | S | M | M | T | T |
Communication
| Skill | Description | PM1 | PM2 | PM3 | PM4 | PM5 | PM6 | PM7 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Saying No, Nicely | Be able to kindly say no to something, leaving the asker validated. | L | P | S | M | T | T | |
| Communicating Timelines | Delivering clear communication about the state of the roadmap as a whole, a particular project, or feature of interest. | L | P | S | M | T | T | |
| Managing Up | Develops effective communication strategies with leadership team so they are constantly informed and aligned with the work we are doing. | L | P | S | M | T | T | |
| Conflict Resolution | Handles potentially hostile situations with frustrated clients, prospects, or projects and kindly creates alignment and a way forward. | L | P | S | M | T | T |
Execution
| Skill | Description | PM1 | PM2 | PM3 | PM4 | PM5 | PM6 | PM7 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Project Management | Skills related to organizing, defining, building, and delivering software functionality. | L | P | S | M | M | T | T |
| Project Complexity | Manages scope and complexity of solution for roadmap items. | L | P | S | M | M | T | |
| Release Coordination | Working with the development team and delivery manager to facilitate the release of a particular feature. | L | P | S | M | M | T | |
| Agile Development Process | Understand and be able to guide teams through various development methodologies | L | P | S | M | M | T |
Product Operations
| Skill | Description | PM1 | PM2 | PM3 | PM4 | PM5 | PM6 | PM7 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Data Analysis | Ability to understand, evaluate, and compare data. | L | P | S | M | T | T | |
| Market Analysis | Ability to analyze market size, opportunity, and evaluate competitive intelligence. | L | P | S | M | T | T | |
| Analytics/ Measuring Outcomes | Creating KPIs, metrics, and data insights to prove that a particular change achieved the desired outcome. | L | P | S | M | M | T | T |
| Product Demos | Demonstrating the functionality, purpose, and key uses of a new or existing feature to internal stakeholders or clients. | L | P | S | M | M | T | T |
| Product Training and Enablement | Building internal content and processes to successfully enable teams to sell, demo, support, and enable clients to use new functionality as it is released. | L | P | S | M | T | T |
Leadership
| Skill | Description | PM1 | PM2 | PM3 | PM4 | PM5 | PM6 | PM7 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Managing Stakeholders | Builds effective relationships of trust with stakeholders across the business, including helping them align on the way we work and what we deliver. | L | P | S | M | M | T | |
| Drive Alignment | Creates alignment across the business that ensures that key stakeholders are aligned to our approach. | L | P | S | M | T | T | |
| Lead By Influence | Demonstrates the ability to lead by influence while not having direct control on the teams and stakeholders that we work with. | L | P | S | M | T | T | |
| Mentorship | Acts as a coach and mentor to help less experienced team members build their skills and deliver successfully. | L | P | S | M | T | T | |
| Team Management | Is an effective people manager, coach, and servant leader. Demonstrates the ability to mentor with authority and help everyone achieve their best work. | P | L | L | S |