From Associate to CPO: Decoding the Product Management Career Ladder

There are three key phases to the PM career you need to understand to progress.

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗧𝗵𝗿𝗲𝗲 𝗞𝗲𝘆 𝗣𝗵𝗮𝘀𝗲𝘀

A few years back, Fareed Mosavat (former Director of Product at Slack) and Casey Winters (former CPO at Eventbrite) identified that one stage is particularly tough — the jump from senior PM to product leader. They called it the Product Leader Canyon. It’s so true.

But they have missed one more jump — from product leader to product executive. Because again, at this step, your aperture changes dramatically.

As you move into the executive line, you are managing a whole product or multiple products. This makes your skill sets required far broader than just PM.

So really, there are three stages:

1. Progressing Seniority
2. The Product Leader Canyon
3. Manager to Executive

Let’s go deeper on each one:

Check out the deep-dive if you want to quickly move from phase to phase and succeed.

𝗣𝗵𝗮𝘀𝗲 𝟭 — 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗴𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗦𝗲𝗻𝗶𝗼𝗿𝗶𝘁𝘆

𝘈𝘴𝘴𝘰𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘗𝘳𝘰𝘥𝘶𝘤𝘵 𝘔𝘢𝘯𝘢𝘨𝘦𝘳 → 𝘚𝘦𝘯𝘪𝘰𝘳 𝘗𝘳𝘰𝘥𝘶𝘤𝘵 𝘔𝘢𝘯𝘢𝘨𝘦𝘳

As you are moving up the PM career ladder in the early stages, your critical skills tend to be around delivery. To earn that promotion at each level you need to:

1. Have the product features you ship drive significant impact
2. Work well with IC engineers, designers, analysts, marketers, and legal & compliance counterparts
3. Have exquisite-quality product work products: PRDs, charters, roadmaps, etc.

𝗣𝗵𝗮𝘀𝗲 𝟮 — 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗿 𝗖𝗮𝗻𝘆𝗼𝗻

𝘓𝘦𝘢𝘥 𝘗𝘳𝘰𝘥𝘶𝘤𝘵 𝘔𝘢𝘯𝘢𝘨𝘦𝘳 → 𝘋𝘪𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘰𝘳 𝘰𝘧 𝘗𝘳𝘰𝘥𝘶𝘤𝘵

As you move from Senior Product Manager to actually managing PMs, many PMs hit a brick wall. They were great individual contributors in the product world. They could drive features to success and make a significant impact on the business.

But it all falls apart when they become managers. What’s driving the failure?

1. You are no longer judged on your own success
2. Influencing up and across becomes a larger portion of your time
3. You have barely any free time outside of meetings
4. It’s not just product design, but org design
5. You have to be able to provide input with less context

𝗣𝗵𝗮𝘀𝗲 𝟯 — 𝗠𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗿 𝘁𝗼 𝗘𝘅𝗲𝗰𝘂𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲

𝘝𝘗 𝘰𝘧 𝘗𝘳𝘰𝘥𝘶𝘤𝘵 → 𝘊𝘩𝘪𝘦𝘧 𝘗𝘳𝘰𝘥𝘶𝘤𝘵 𝘖𝘧𝘧𝘪𝘤𝘦𝘳

What makes phase 3 so different from phase 2?

1. Your aperture expands beyond product management
2. You have to be able to anticipate investable areas far in advance
3. You have to prioritize the top 1/10th of what you could be doing

It was an awesome collaboration with Amplitude VP of Product Ibrahim Bashir.

We went really deep with videos and tips you won’t find anywhere else.