The Unbundled Product Manager: A Field Guide to the Modern Product Career
Product management used to be described (sometimes unhelpfully) as “the CEO of the product.” Modern reality is both richer and more nuanced. As software has eaten the world, PM work has fragmented and specialized. Today’s product careers “unbundle” in two directions:
Vertically, through clear levels of scope and influence-from Product Owner and PM to Staff, Principal, Group PM, Director, VP, and CPO.
Horizontally, into specializations-Platform/Technical PM, Growth PM, AI PM, and more-each with distinct toolkits, partners, and metrics.
Below is a field guide to both paths, with quotes, research, and data to ground what’s changed and how to navigate it.
The job to be done of PM (and where Product Owner fits)
A reliable way to anchor PM’s core intent is Marty Cagan’s succinct formulation: “You need to discover a product solution… that is usable, useful, and feasible.” (Silicon Valley Product Group)
In Scrum contexts, many organizations use the Product Owner title. The Scrum Guide frames this unambiguously: “A Product Owner is accountable for maximizing the value of the product resulting from the work of the Scrum Team.”(Scrum.org) That sentence is the tell: PO is about accountability for value. In practice, companies blend PO and PM responsibilities depending on scale and maturity; just remember that “PO” is an accountability in Scrum, not simply a junior version of PM. (Scrum.org)
Why the role is unbundling
Three forces are pushing PM work to specialize:
Scale and complexity. Multi-product portfolios and platformized codebases mean some PMs succeed by going deeper (e.g., internal platforms) while others span more surface area (e.g., monetization or ecosystems).
Data and outcomes. Modern product orgs index on outcomes over output, tying roadmaps to revenue, retention, and adoption. In ProductPlan’s 2024 survey of 1,440 product professionals, “revenue growth ranked as the #1 success metric,” even as teams also track usage, adoption, and retention.
AI everywhere. Product leaders increasingly steward responsible AI and new evaluation methods as AI infuses features and workflows. (More on AI PM below.)
Vertical growth: from PM to CPO
Titles vary by company, but common rungs-and their typical scope-look like this. (Intercom’s public PM ladder is a useful exemplar; Levels.fyi shows how many firms map Staff/Principal/GPM and beyond.)
Title
Core scope & impact
Product Owner
Owns value and backlog accountability for a team in Scrum; clarifies vision, orders backlog, and ensures transparency. (Scrum.org)
Product Manager / Senior PM
Defines problem–solution bets for a team (PM) or area (Sr PM). Drives discovery and delivery with design and engineering; measures outcomes. (Silicon Valley Product Group)
Staff PM
A “more senior Senior PM,” embedded with a team but handling highly ambiguous problems with minimal supervision; mentors PMs. (Intercom’s language.)
Principal PM
One of the most senior ICs; not embedded with a single team. Tackles org-spanning, complex problems; elevates how the org does product.
Group PM (GPM)
First significant management step: leads a group of PMs, sets strategy for an area, and is accountable for the market impact of multiple teams.
Director of Product
Manages multiple GPMs/teams; shapes portfolio strategy, resource allocation, cross-org alignment; partners with peer functions. (See ProductPlan’s guidance on product leadership scope.) (ProductPlan)
VP of Product
Owns broader product portfolio, org design, and operating model; interfaces with exec staff and board on product strategy and performance. (ProductPlan)
Chief Product Officer (CPO)
Executive who leads the entire product org-vision, portfolio strategy, UX/research/analytics oversight, and cross-company alignment. “A CPO is responsible for the strategic product direction” and supervises product leaders. (ProductPlan)
Data point: The CPO seat is spreading. ProductPlan reports that 30% of Fortune 1000 companies had a CPO in 2023-up from 15% in 2022.
What actually changes as you rise? Intercom summarizes three dimensions that scale with level: scope(surface area and time horizon), autonomy (ability to lead through ambiguity), and impact(customer/business results and org influence).
Horizontal growth: specializations that are redefining PM
1) Platform / Technical PM
What it is. PMs who treat internal developer platforms (IDPs), APIs, and shared services as products-with developers as the customers. The Cloud Native Computing Foundation’s platform whitepaper encourages enterprises to plan and fund internal platforms deliberately because they influence value streams-even if indirectly. (tag-app-delivery.cncf.io)
Day-to-day. Define platform strategy and adoption metrics (time-to-first-success, internal NPS, paved-road coverage); ensure reliability/operability; govern API lifecycle and deprecation; and partner closely with Staff Engineers, SRE, and security.
Quote: Dropbox describes this split clearly: “We have PMs who sit within our platform teams… building things for the core product PMs, such as services and APIs.” (jobs.dropbox.com)
Useful references. Google Cloud’s API product playbook emphasizes PMs as technical subject-matter experts who can communicate specs and define KPIs for API products-good reading for technical PMs. (Google Cloud)
2) Growth PM
What it is. PMs who own acquisition, activation, engagement, and monetization levers through rigorous experimentation and analytics. This is not “random hacks.” As Brian Balfour puts it, “All growth is not created equal.” Sustainable growth is a system, not a trick. (Brian Balfour)
Day-to-day. Design and run experiments (e.g., pricing/paywalls, onboarding, lifecycle messaging); build or improve experimentation platforms; partner with marketing, data science, and lifecycle ops. Amplitude’s North Star framework is often used to tie customer value to business results via a single guiding metric. (Amplitude)
Quote: “It’s definitely not growth hacking,” warns Balfour-beware silver bullets. (Brian Balfour)
3) AI PM
What it is. PMs who ship AI-native features (e.g., copilots, recommendations) or platform capabilities (model hosting, evaluation pipelines). This specialization blends classic PM skills with model behavior, data pipelines, evaluation, and risk management.
Day-to-day. Frame problems where probabilistic outputs make sense; define TEVV (test, evaluation, verification, validation) plans and offline/online metrics; set policies for human-in-the-loop; instrument telemetry for post-launch drift; and partner with data scientists, ML engineers, legal, and compliance. NIST’s AI Risk Management Framework (AI RMF) offers a helpful vocabulary: its Core is “composed of four functions: GOVERN, MAP, MEASURE, and MANAGE.”(NIST Publications)
Why it matters for PMs. Many product orgs now adopt or adapt explicit AI principles and governance practices (see Google’s public AI Principles and SAIF security framework), making AI literacy an advantage for PMs regardless of specialization. (Google AI)
4) Additional specializations you’ll encounter
Monetization/Payments PM: Owns pricing, packaging, billing, and fraud prevention; tight with Finance and Data.
Ecosystem/Partnerships PM: Builds developer platforms and partner integrations; manages incentives and quality. (The API PM references above apply.) (Google Cloud)
Trust & Safety/Compliance PM: Focuses on abuse mitigation, content policy, and regulatory obligations; heavy cross-functional work with Legal/Policy.
Internationalization/Localization PM: Expands products efficiently across languages, currencies, and compliance regimes.
Product Operations (Product Ops): Not a PM subtype, but a sibling function that “optimizes the intersection of product, engineering, and customer success,” standardizes rituals, and accelerates feedback loops-especially at scale. (Pendo.io)
Which path is for you? A practical decision frame
1) Decide your altitude: IC craft, people leadership, or executive portfolio.
If you love hard, ambiguous product problems and cross-org influence without people management, Staff/Principal PM is a strong fit. Intercom explicitly distinguishes Staff (embedded ambiguity-buster) from Principal (org-spanning problem-solver and craft bar-raiser).
If you’re energized by building teams and systems, Group PM → Director → VP is the arc. You’ll spend more time on strategy, coaching, org design, and portfolio tradeoffs than on writing PRDs.
If your strengths are company-wide storytelling and portfolio shaping, the CPO path is your north star. (For context, the CPO seat is becoming more common in large companies.)
2) Choose the horizontal “major” that multiplies your strengths.
Love systems, reliability, and developer experience? Choose Platform/Technical PM and adopt “platform as a product” practices. The CNCF’s guidance is a good starting point. (tag-app-delivery.cncf.io)
Obsess over experiments, funnels, and causality? Go Growth PM; master instrumentation, experiment design, and North Star metrics. (Amplitude)
Fascinated by model behavior and safety? Go AI PM; learn evaluation design and AI risk management language (GOVERN, MAP, MEASURE, MANAGE). (NIST Publications)
3) Build a portfolio that proves the specialization.
Platform/Technical: publish internal roadmaps that improved developer productivity or reliability; show API adoption curves, time-to-first-success, and deprecation governance. (Google Cloud)
Growth: share experiment trees and “wins and learns”; tie outcomes to your product’s North Star metric. (Amplitude)
AI: document how you framed user risk, designed evals, and monitored post-launch drift-with metrics and human-in-the-loop processes aligned to AI RMF concepts. (NIST Publications)
A closer look at responsibilities by level
Here’s a compact way to visualize the difference across senior IC and early management levels (language adapted from Intercom’s public ladder):
Senior PM → Staff PM: From dependable owner of a team’s roadmap to independent operator in ambiguitywho mentors others. Staff PMs still ship, but with less oversight and greater bar-raising.
Staff → Principal PM: From embedded to org-level scope-think multi-team bets (e.g., a pricing overhaul or foundational platform migration). Principal PMs “showcase excellence” and uplevel product practices across teams.
Principal PM → Group PM: Crosses into people leadership; responsible for a portfolio’s strategy and market impact, still with strong product craft.
Remember: ladders vary. Levels.fyi’s cross-company mapping is a helpful reality check if you’re considering a move across firms. (Levels.fyi)
What to learn next (by specialization)
Platform/Technical PM: Read CNCF’s platforms whitepaper and maturity model to help translate platform investments into business outcomes. Tie your roadmap to developer experience and reliability measures. (tag-app-delivery.cncf.io)
Growth PM: Internalize experimentation math, uplift measurement, and guardrails. “Growth is a system,” not a bag of tricks; frameworks like North Star keep you aligned to customer value. (Brian Balfour)
AI PM: Learn how orgs formalize responsible AI (e.g., Google’s AI Principles/SAIF), and operationalize NIST’s AI RMF in your product lifecycle. You’ll collaborate more with Legal/Policy than many other PMs. (Google AI)
Conclusion
Specialization is good; it raises the bar for customers and companies alike. But the center of PM hasn’t changed. We still exist to help teams discover and deliver products that work for customers and the business. Or, to borrow one last line from SVPG: find a solution that is “usable, useful, and feasible”-and ship it responsibly. (Silicon Valley Product Group)