Product Management roles will become more specialized
There's a growing trend of
specialization in Product Management.
While browsing several job descriptions on Glassdoor and Indeed, I noticed that the qualification requirements are getting very specific.
Here are 3 examples:
Listen. I’m an advocate of PMs being generalists at heart, with an ability to adapt to different products by virtue of their transferable skill set. However, it seems that the employer market is shifting demand towards PMs that can hit the ground running.
And these "specialization" requirements have different vectors.
Product Managers are expected to have depth in various permutations of 5 aspects:
1. Industry experience e.g. Fintech, Healthtech, Proptech etc.
2. Skillset experience e.g. Platform PM, Data PM, Growth PM etc.
3. Technology specialization e.g. Mobile, API, Web3, IoT, Hardware etc.
4. Audience specialization e.g. B2B, B2C, D2C etc.
5. Product Type exposure e.g. SaaS, E-Commerce, Marketplaces etc.
Of course, some of these can be combined together. For example, you can have companies pursuing a
B2B Growth Product Manager.
If this trend continues, PMs might need to plan their next career moves with an intention to go deep.
The advice I’ve been contemplating on is “1 Major, 2 Minors”:
1. Major in product management.
Product Management is no joke and it takes time to master. Ensure you develop strong foundations in discovery, strategy, roadmaps, prioritization, stakeholder management, and product analytics. Without that, you’ll struggle no matter what the domain.
2. Minor in a product type.
Pick up a product type like B2B and get depth in how the buying cycle works and the considerations PMs have to make in it.
3. Minor in an industry.
Take time to build depth in domain knowledge and get into the weeds of it.
This might seem like an awful lot but a solid 2-3 year stint at a growing company can enable you to achieve this.
My only fear is that employers might start favoring domain experts with weak Product Management skills in an effort to “save time”. That move won’t end well.