In a world where there are new avenues opening up everyday, product management is a field that has taken the world by storm. An article from Economic Times on whether product management is a lucrative career or not even showed that there are 20,000+ PM jobs available on LinkedIn alone (as per data of July).
Does this strike one thing in your head?
Not every PM job role you come across may be for you. That is not a rabbit hole you would want to go down, right? As all product roles are not equal and same, it's important that you find a role that suits your interest and skill set.
But, for that you need to know answers to questions like:
What are different types of PM roles?
What are the focus areas of different types those PM roles?
What is the skill set you need?
& last but not the least, the most important question!
How do you know which PM role is for you?
Get an answers to all these questions with us. Let's begin!
What are Different Types of Product Managers in India?
As per Indian context, there are three types of product managers:
a. Growth Product Manager
b. Core Product Manager
c. Technical Product Manager
To understand how job market really looks for an entry level Indian product managers, we tried doing various searches on LinkedIn & here's what we found!
There are more than 15,000 jobs for product managers. This includes product roles at various levels.
We found that there are 180 job roles for any entry level growth product manager in India.
There were 927 results for any entry level core product manager in India.
& just 228 jobs for for any entry level technical product manager roles in India!
This shows, that some companies have different roles for different PMs but they still are not well categorised. Hence, this makes it very important that you read through the JD carefully before actually applying for any role. You need to be sure that the role interests you and you have the skills you need for this job. Isn't it
Let's deep dive deeper into these three roles individually to understand what skills do you need for each of these roles & what can interest about them.
Growth Product Manager
The core focus of this product manager is in the name of their designation. Their core area of focus is growth of an existing feature or product. Their core responsibilities include:
- Acquisition of new customers
- Retention of existing customers
- Monetisation
As a growth PM, you need to have experimentation skills, optimisation skills, quick decision making, marketing skills, data and statistical skills and speed to deploy. But how will these skills come in handy when you work? Let's find out!The important levers that help any aspiring growth product manager in fulfilling their core responsibilities are:
- Sound understanding of product analytics
Optimisation skills come in really handy here - Being able to carry out user behaviour analysis
Data and statistical skills will help you analyse your user's behaviour better - Carrying out A/B Experiments as and when needed
Experimentation skills are what you need to carry out these experiments - Knowledge of no code tools
No code tools ensure there's a quick speed of deploying new features in the product (even if you don't know coding.)
All these levers, need a quick decision making skill because you will always have stipulated time!
Let's map them and understand how the above four levers contribute in a growth PM's core responsibilities:
- Sound understanding of product analytics helps you identify the gaps in any product's features in depth that have a potential to drive the growth of the product.
- Being able to carry out user behaviour analysis helps you understand the potential areas drop offs can occur. You further spend time figuring out how these areas can be fixed and this helps in retention of existing customers. In a way, it also improves the experience of a customer while using the product.
- Carrying out A/B experiments as and when needed ensures that you are aware of what really worked out for your product and what didn't. It also gives you a space to experiment and understand user behaviour on your product better.
- As a growth PM, you need not know coding. It is totally fine because knowledge of no code tools fills this gap.
Here's how we can simplify the lifecycle of any growth product manager!A growth product manager analyses of gaps in the product, hypothesizes the problem statement and experiments based on the hypothesis. If we show it in form of a lifecycle, it looks like this:
Here are a few challenges you may come across as a growth PM:
- You may not always get enough context of the problem you are solving
- You might end up spending too much time figuring out the best ideas
- You may find it difficult to prioritise your experiments if it is multi-member team
- You might find it hard to communicate the impact of your work
- You may face difficulty in converting an idea to a testable hypothesis
Now that we discussed about the challenges, let's find out how you can understand the JD of a growth product manager looks like!
If you check the highlighted terms in JD, each is a part of the core responsibility of a growth PM. Let's see how!
Highlighted terms | Core responsibility term reflects |
Platform usage growth | Acquisition |
Identify new audience opportunities | Acquistion |
Stickiness with the aid of existing or newly defined analytics on usage pattern | Retention |
Design A/B experiments | Retention |
Positioning of new product capabilities | Monetisation |
Identify opportunities for future growth | Monetisation |
Terms like these are an indication that it is a growth PM's JD even if it does not reflect in the job title!
Core Product Manager
The focus area of a core product manager is to focus on creating new products & features or enhancing existing features. Their core responsibilities include:
- Solving for customer pain points
- Creating value for customers by improving any existing product's functionality
As a core product manager, you need to have empathy for users, strong research skills, problem solving mindset and a holistic product thinking approach. Let's find out how do these skills will come in handy for you!The important levers that will help you get a hang of being a core product manager in fulfilling your core responsibilities are:
- Doing user research & taking interviews every now and then
Your empathy for users will help you make the most out of the user research & interviews - Staying up to date with the market & competitor research
Strong research skills will encourage you to find a pearl in the ocean of your findings - Setting the roadmap & prioritising the important tasks
Problem solving mindset is what you'll need to prioritise and make roadmaps to align with the outcome that is expected out of you - Sound understanding of development & release of a product
Holistic product thinking will be an added benefit in understanding the nitty gritty of any product's development and release
& did this make you realise something?
You do not need a technical background to be a great core product manager!
Isn't that great?
Let's map these four levers contribute to the core responsibilities to a core PM's main responsibilities:
- Doing user research & taking interviews will ensure that you are continuously updated with what your customers really need. This helps you enhance the customer experience of your product on the go.
- Staying up to date with the market & competitor research helps you understand if you need to introduce any new features in the system. This in turn will help you enhance the value of your product.
- Setting the roadmap & prioritising the important tasks is a factor that also depends on the user research. It is your user empathy that'll help you prioritise the customer pain points that you need to solve for right now. Setting a roadmap will give a direction to what you are working on.
- Sound understanding of development & release of a product is necessary because the entire process of developing a new feature or enhancing any feature needs to be well thought. A holistic approach will help here. The better you understand the process, the better you will be able to convey your understanding of a user's problem to your engineering team.
Let's simplify the lifecycle of any core product manager!A core product manager identifies the pain points, validates those pain points via user research, prioritises the important pain points and plan the development of features that'll add value to life of the users. If we show it in form of a lifecycle, it looks like this:
Here are a few challenges you may come across as a core product manager:
- You may face difficulty in finding the right product market fit for a new product or feature
- You might feel that coordinating across different teams is time consuming
- You may find it hard to conduct a robust user research
- You might face a problem in balancing time between creating new features and improving existing ones
- Your team maybe inclined to discussing the solutions rather than the problems
Let's check a JD and understand how you can identify whether its for a core product manager or not!
Highlighted terms | Core responsibility term reflects |
Understand our user needs | Solving for customer pain points |
Define product strategy | Creating value for customers |
Decompose projects into completable parts | Solving for customer pain points |
Build 0 ➝ 1 product experiences | Creating value for customers |
Exceptional product sense | Solving for customer pain points |
Leveraging data to make product bets | Creating value for customers |
Terms like these indicate that this is a core PM's JD even if it the title does not say so!
Technical Product Manager
The designation of this product manager sounds as if they are individuals with a very strong technical and software expertise. But the truth is, the technical PMs are referred as technical due to their in depth understanding of an industry in a specific vertical. While there may be companies that hire a technical product manager based on their business requirements, few also hire a technical product manager due to their specialisation in a particular domain. So, its important you check the job description thoroughly before you apply!The core responsibilities of a technical product manager include:
- Utilising industry knowledge to improvise and scale existing features/products
- Assess the risks that can be a threat to existing features/products
As a technical PM, you should have a strong technical understanding, data and statistical skills, and stakeholder management. Let's find out how these skills can help you become The important levers that help any aspiring technical product manager in fulfilling their core responsibilities are:
- Sound understanding of the industry
Strong technical understanding of industry will help you understand the improvisations you can suggest for the products/features - Staying up to date with market trends
Data and statistical skills will help you analyse and assess the data to understand the potential improvisations or threats to a feature/product - Coordinating with internal stakeholders for execution of the work
Stakeholder management skills help you ensure that you communicate your requirements and coordinate with all the stakeholders effectively
Let's map them and understand how the above four levers contribute in a growth PM's core responsibilities:
- Sound understanding of the industry gives you an edge over the rest of the members of the team. Given, you are an expert of the industry, you can utilise this knowledge to improvise and scale any product effectively
- Staying up to date with market trends will help you assess any potential risks to a product/feature you are working on
- Coordinating with internal stakeholders for execution of the work will ensure that you put your industry knowledge to the best use to improve or scale a product/feature.
Let's simplify the lifecycle of any technical product manager!
A technical product manager, analyses the market trends to identify problem, explores new ways of solving the problem, identifies the most innovative solution from them, assesses the risk involved in the solution and coordinates with stakeholders for execution. If we show it in form of a lifecycle, it looks like this:
Let's check a JD and understand how you can identify whether its for a technical product manager or not!
Highlighted terms | Core responsibility term reflects |
Delivering broadly adopted technology products/services | Utilising your knowledge to scale the products/features |
Analytical & Data driven | Assess risks that can be a threat to a product/feature |
Drives high level of focus and excellence | Utilising your knowledge to improve existing products/features |
Innovative thinking | Utilising your knowledge to improve existing products/features |
Improving software products cross-functionally | Utilising your knowledge to improve existing products/features |
Blend of business and technical savy | Utilising your knowledge to improve existing products/features & assess risks that can be a threat to a product/feature |
Terms like these indicate that this is a technical PM's JD even no matter what the title says!
Let's summarise everything we went through!
Types of PMs | Responsibilities | Focus areas | Skill sets |
Growth PM | Product Analytics User Behaviour Analysis A/B Experiments No Code Tools | Acquisition Activation Retention Monetisation Pricing Subscription Conversion | Data driven Experimentation Result Orientation |
Core PM | User Research & Interviews Market & competitor research Roadmapping & prioritisation Development & Release | Feature Expansion New verticals New initiatives Community Newsfeed | User understanding Product sense Problem solving |
Technical PM | Scale features/products Improve features/products Risk assessment | Technology Data Infrastructure | Technical understanding Data driven Stakeholder management |
Let's take a few popular products and analyse what do different types of product managers do in these companies!
New PM Roles
Product management as a field is growing and companies are coming up with new roles every now and then. One such evolving role is named as, New Initiatives PM. When a company grows, the company needs people to come up with new initiatives. It is equivalent to an early stage PM or a 0 to 1 PM in a large company.
Final Thoughts
Now, that you are aware of the types of product managers in India, we suggest you to analyse your skills before you decide which kind of product manager you want to be.
Hence, before you apply for any of the positions, do take a free KYS test we offer and understand all your blindspots and strengths. It is a 50 minutes test with 49 questions, that'll give you an insight on six skills, product sense, technical understanding, data driven & experimentative, problem solving, communication skills and result orientation.
What are you waiting for?
Take the KYS test now!
