The product management crossroads: Skills to shape your product journey
Ever stood at the intersection with too many road signs? That's how a product management career can feel. With roles varying dramatically across companies, industries, and product types, aspiring and mid-career product managers alike face a critical question: "Where should I focus my career development?". In my experience helping other product managers navigate their career paths, I've found that many struggle with this question. Product manager career development—like any other career path—isn’t just about building skills; it’s about identifying which skills to develop based on the product landscape you want to navigate.
To find out that career direction, I’d always start with “What's your current product management focus?”, and then try to add to it "Which of the paths interests you most for your future growth?”.
To help you with the second part of it, below is the list of "choices" that my mentees found very helpful to go through and discuss. So go pick up your peer and brainstorm through or just do it on your own. You don't have to make a choice for each of these areas, but try to explore at least some of them. If there's much uncertainty in your mind, instead of trying to pick the right option, think about "what you don't want to do or be." Each of these "choices" will shape your journey as each path requires unique skill sets. Please don’t treat it as an exhaustive list of options but as a guidance so you get the idea.
Customer-facing vs. internal products
Customer-facing products are typically what most people imagine when thinking about product management—consumer apps like Instagram, e-commerce platforms like Amazon, or B2B software like Salesforce. These roles typically require:
- Deep user empathy and customer research skills
- Market analysis capabilities
- Competitive positioning expertise
- Brand and marketing alignment
Examples: Instagram, Amazon, Spotify, Netflix
Internal products serve employees within organizations—HR systems, internal tools, or operational software. These roles emphasize:
- Process optimization skills
- Understanding of organizational dynamics
- Business case development for cost savings or productivity
Examples: internal analytics dashboards, custom CRM tools or dev tools.
When I built features for savings and investments in the bank’s app for millions of retail customers, my focus was entirely external – user journeys, aha-moments, emotion-driven decision-making, engagement loops, and retention strategies. What was critical at that time was having deep customer empathy and being able to identify and interpret behavioral insights, sometimes covered behind facial expression or emotion, requiring me to read between the lines.
Now, in my current work at OEC – which is B2B – most of the areas I own are internal-facing: integration features, identity and access management, and the admin side of the product, which serves as the backbone of the whole platform. This requires a slightly different skill set. I need to understand complex workflows and processes, align cross-functional teams, think in terms of business-case categories and operational efficiency. Of course, I still need to understand user needs and conduct user research – but it's a very different kind of research compared to working on external-facing products.
Business model variations
B2C (Business-to-consumer) product management focuses on driving consumer engagement, retention, and monetization. You'll need:
- Rapid experimentation and A/B testing
- Viral growth strategies
- Consumer psychology insights
Examples: Netflix, Duolingo, Instagram
B2B (Business-to-business) product management requires different muscles:
- Enterprise sales cycle knowledge
- Account management and customer success
- Security and compliance expertise
Examples: Salesforce, Workday, Slack, HubSpot
C2C/Marketplace products connect users to exchange goods or services, requiring:
- Trust and safety ecosystem design
- Network effect and platform dynamics
- Supply-demand matching algorithms
Examples: Airbnb, Etsy, eBay
Feel free to explore other types such as B2G or P2P as well.
Back to my career example – when I shifted to B2B, it was a complete mindset change. I could not imagine that I would be building features for just one client – or even a few users within that client. But when we talk about enterprise, it’s all real – value isn’t measured in user volume and fast feedback loops, it’s in depth understanding of all nuances of client’s business flow and, oftenly, collaboration between personas, about customization and long-term relationships. And the pace is usually slower. Compared to a bank app (B2C), where speed of learning matters a lot, so you run many more experiments and tests and will probably never ship a feature for one customer.
Scope considerations
Portfolio product managers manage multiple products or features across a product suite:
- Strategic portfolio prioritization
- Resource allocation across initiatives
- Consistent user experience design
Examples: Google Workspace suite, Microsoft Office 365
Deep expertise product managers focus intensely on complex, specialized products:
- Domain-specific technical expertise
- Complex problem solving and innovation
- In-depth industry knowledge
Examples: Bloomberg Terminal, specialized medical software.
Think of investments. Building a terminal for professional investors is a great example – it requires deep subject-matter expertise. It’s not just about usability – it demands a solid understanding of financial instruments, customer investment flows, portfolio theory, risk profiling, and strict regulatory requirements. You have to think like both: a product manager and someone who understands how markets function, what compliance guardrails must be respected, and so on. On the contrary, imagine you’re managing a portfolio of savings features or products within a bank app: savings account, goal savings, auto-savings. It’s still quite specific and requires knowledge of the industry and regulations, but not at the same depth as investment products. Most likely, you’ll find more application of such skills like segmentation and matching between feature-segments, think strategically across multiple user journeys and identify gaps rather than applying specialized knowledge of financial markets.
Generalist vs. specialist roles
Generalist product managers (E2E) handle the full product lifecycle:
- End-to-end product strategy and execution
- Broad toolset for discovery, delivery, and growth
Examples: Product manager at a SaaS startup, Product leaders at early-stage companies
Specialist product managers focus on specific product disciplines:
- UX product managers: Prototyping, usability testing, user research
- Strategy Product managers: Market research, competitive analysis, business modeling
- Technical Product managers: API design, technical architecture, developer experience
Examples: UX PM at Airbnb, Strategy PM at McKinsey Digital, Technical PM at GitHub
Special product types
Each specialized product category requires unique expertise, e.g.:
Data products require expertise in data-centric systems:
- Data architecture understanding
- Analytics and dashboard design
- Data visualization principles
- Data privacy and governance
Examples: Tableau, Snowflake, Looker
Marketplaces focus on connecting users for transactions:
- Supply/demand economics
- Matching algorithms understanding
- Trust and safety mechanisms
Examples: Uber, Thumbtack, Deliveroo
Gaming centered around user engagement and monetization:
- Engagement loop design
- In-game monetization strategies
- Understanding game mechanics and player psychology
Examples: Fortnite, Candy Crush, Roblox
IoT (Internet of Things) blends hardware and software:
- Hardware/software integration
- Connectivity and synchronization
- Physical product design considerations
- Edge computing concepts
Examples: Nest, Ring
Social & content focused on community and user-generated content:
- Virality and network effects
- Content moderation strategies
- Creator economy dynamics
- Engagement optimization
- Community building and retention tactics
Examples: TikTok, Medium, Discord.
As someone who had never worked in a marketplace before, I can say – it definitely has its own character. I constantly have to balance supply and demand and create mechanisms that benefit both sides of the transaction. Any change to one side inevitably affects the other – something I hadn’t experienced in my previous roles. My recommendation: go find a product manager from each of the examples above, chat with them about their day-to-day, and how they think – as an example – “working in gaming
Specialized product manager roles
Growth product manager
- Acquisition, activation, retention metrics
- A/B testing expertise
- User journey optimization
- Conversion funnel analysis
Examples: Growth product manager at Pinterest, Dropbox
AI product manager
- Machine learning and model training
- Ethical AI considerations and data management
- Model performance evaluation and improvements
Examples: AI features at Grammarly, OpenAI product managers
Product marketing manager
- Go-to-market strategy
- Positioning and messaging
- Competitive intelligence
- Sales enablement
Examples: Product marketing managers at Salesforce, HubSpot
Platform product manager
- API design and developer experience
- Ecosystem and partnership strategy
- Platform governance and technical documentation
Examples: Platform product managers at Stripe, Twilio.
Let’s compare product marketing managers (PMM) and platform product managers – both are called product managers but there is an ocean between them. Product marketing managers is focused on go-to-market strategy, crafting the right messaging, identifying target segments, and ensuring that the product's value is clearly communicated to them through the right channels. They live and breathe customer perception, competitive positioning, and enabling sales teams to tell the product story effectively. For a product marketing managers, the concept of app containerization or internal developer tooling might as well be another language. Knowing how APIs work in depth is unlikely to help much in landing a product marketing managers role.
On the other side, a platform product manager is fully immersed in the engineering ecosystem. They think about how to make APIs more usable, how to improve developer experience, how to make environments exactly the same to minimize bugs after deployments, or how to scale infrastructure through something like containerization or CI/CD pipelines. They work closely with backend engineers and architect decisions that support performance, scalability, and integration – but they rarely, if ever, think about crafting a value proposition or choosing the best marketing channel for a product launch. That’s not their lane – and that’s perfectly okay. Just understand your strengths and interests, and play to them.
Technical vs. non-technical focus
Technical product managers work closely with engineering on complex technical products, requiring:
- Programming knowledge (even if not coding day-to-day)
- System architecture understanding
- Technical feasibility assessment
- Developer tools experience
Examples: Product managers at GitHub, MongoDB, AWS
Non-technical product managers focus more on business and user experience:
- Business case development and market analysis
- User research and experience design
- Go-to-market expertise and product positioning
Examples: Product managers at consumer apps, marketing products
Industry domain specialization
Some product managers specialize in specific verticals:
- Healthcare: Regulatory compliance, clinical workflows, health data
- Finance: Security, compliance, risk management, financial models
- Education: Learning science, curriculum design, classroom integration
- E-commerce: Conversion optimization, inventory management, payments
Examples: Healthcare product managers at Epic Systems, Finance PMs at Stripe
Management path vs. Individual contributor
Group product managers/Directors lead teams of PMs:
- People management, coaching, and strategic direction
- Resource allocation and cross-team collaboration
- Driving vision and product alignment
Examples: Group product manager, Director of Product, CPO
Principal/Staff product managers are senior individual contributors:
- Deep subject matter expertise
- Complex problem-solving
- Cross-functional influence without direct authority
- Leadership in technical or domain-specific areas
Examples: Staff product manager, principal product manager, distinguished product manager.
This one is an interesting one. Do you feel more comfortable doing things on your own? Maybe you don’t even like asking others for help – then you might struggle to delegate if you move into management and quickly burn out. On the other hand, maybe you genuinely enjoy leading a group, influencing others, organizing chaos, mentoring, and helping people grow. If that sounds like you, then consider aiming for a management role. Managing others is as complicated as it is rewarding – you’ll be sharing everything, from wins to losses, with your direct reports.
I’ve seen both types of individuals: those who actively seek out management roles because they thrive on team dynamics, love to see the bigger picture, and prefer not to be hands-on all the time – and others who avoid management at all costs, even when offered significant compensation increases. They prefer deep focus and autonomy. If you’re more like the latter and don’t plan to become a manager, you can safely skip investing too much in learning people management skills – which is an art on its own. And, this isn’t unique to product management – it applies to any career. We get used to thinking that career growth always means becoming a manager, but that’s not true. People can be just as successful and fulfilled staying on the individual contributor path. What matters is knowing which path feels natural to you – and why.
As an afterword
Here are some additional questions that will help to make it through the list:
- Which product types energize you most when you think about working on them daily?
- Do you prefer breadth of knowledge or depth in a specific domain?
- How technical do you want to be, and how much time are you willing to invest in technical skills?
- Do you enjoy managing people, or do you prefer hands-on product work?
- Are there industries or domains where you have existing expertise or passion?
Remember, that your product manager journey doesn't have to follow a straight line. Many successful product leaders have zigzagged between different product types, business models, and specializations throughout their careers. The key is making intentional choices that build toward your long-term goals while remaining open to unexpected opportunities.
Read more great career content on Mind the Product
About the author
Iuliia Nemudrova
Iuliia is a Product Manager with 10+ years of experience in product management and customer service, specializing in SaaS and FinTech. She is passionate about creating customer-centric solutions that improve lives, leveraging a deep understanding of user needs to design exceptional mobile and web experiences. She thrives in Agile environments, and she is committed to cross-functional collaboration, and excel at solving complex challenges. Outside work, she is an avid traveler, lifelong learner, and specialty coffee enthusiast.
