Trying to Understand Business Facing Product Roles within Tech? This Note may Help!

A career switcher’s POV on roles you may want to consider.

Note: All views are my personal opinions.

A little intro to my career journey

I spent 5+ years working in international development research and consulting before realising I wanted something different from my career. A chance discussion with my sister-in-law about her work as a Product Manager at a big tech company introduced me to the world of product — I’ve been hooked ever since. I now work in Product Marketing, and I’m learning more about the industry every day.

But back then, I didn’t know how/where to start. How do you apply for jobs without knowing what kinds of jobs exist in the “tech world” for someone with a background in economics and no experience with digital products?

It took me 20+ conversations, books, and blogs before I understood the various opportunities and how to differentiate between the different types of roles available given my background — I hope this note can make that task a little easier for the next person making a similar transition.

The challenge I faced as someone who didn’t study engineering or know many people working in tech at the time was that I didn’t understand (i) what kinds of roles existed within a tech company that I might be interested in, and more importantly, (ii) what roles I would be able to do.

“Tech” is a complicated industry to untangle in itself and it can be especially so if you’re looking for a “business related job in tech”, which I was doing. So let’s break it down.

Business focused jobs in tech

To start, there are two overarching types of roles within a tech company that can be considered “business-y” and open to non-engineers*:

1. Commercial — these are the people who enable selling the product to the market. This could mean owning a book of business, driving growth/sales, owning a profit & loss statement (p&l), managing operations and/or people, initiating and managing partnerships, etc. Commercial roles are usually within the Sales, Marketing, Operations, and Business Development departments within a tech company.
2. Product — these roles involve working directly on a product team with the engineers. Product roles often include Data Science, Product Manager, Product Marketing, User Experience Research, Product Design, and Content Design. All of these functions are involved in the ideation, development, launch, and growth phases in product lifecycles.

*PS: I am definitely oversimplifying the types of roles available within tech. There are other roles like legal, finance, HR, security, accounting etc. as well, but those are outside the scope of this note.

Here’s an Example

Let’s use the example of an actual company to make the job types easier to follow. Consider the ride share and food delivery company, Uber.

On the commercial side, it likely has Marketing teams that decide when to place an ad for the app (either to find new users/riders or to hire new drivers), where to place the ad, and what messaging to use when they place the ad.

They would also have a Business Development team that develops partnerships, like with specific restaurants or event arenas, to give their customers (you!) special deals on rides to their locations.

They would also have an Operations (Ops) team that sets the company up & manages day to day functioning in every city Uber operates in.

These teams would fall under the “Commercial” roles described above.

On the product side, Uber will have teams that are responsible for building the actual apps that you, as their customer, interact with. They are the ones who decide what the experience looks like to book a ride, what noise the notification makes when you are matched to a driver, and even what tools a driver has to accept or reject a ride.

All these teams are “Product” teams — in this case, the product could be the “Book a ride”, the “Notifications”, or the “Driver” team. In some cases (usually in smaller companies or for newer products), the “product” might just be the whole app itself.

A deeper dive into “product facing business roles”

This note will focus on product facing business roles as (i) this is the space I know best and wanted to switch my career to and (ii) Commercial roles in tech also tend to be more analogous to commercial roles in other industries, so they’re easier to understand as an outsider.

There are 3 main types of product roles that most people tend to go into if they are interested in business and product:

• Product Manager (PM)
• Product Marketing Manager (PMM)
• Product Strategist (PS)

I’ve ordered them below in terms of their proximity and involvement in building the product, as I think this is the true differentiator between these roles.

Most simply, all 3 aim to answer the same basic question: “What product or feature should the team invest in?” but, and importantly, their outlook tends to vary over different timeframes.

• PMs are heavily involved in day-to-day execution and work most closely with engineers — they are answering the question “what should the team be building right now (i.e., over the next 3–6 months)?”
• PMMs think 6–12 months ahead of the product team and work in between engineering and commercial teams — they answer the question “what should the product team start building in 6 or 12 months from now?”
• PS often thinks 2–3 years ahead and works more at a cross team level (depending on the size of the company). PS teams look into “what should the team, or company as a whole, invest in over the next few years?”

Note: PM, PMM, and PS functions usually work together to answer all of these questions, so in reality the time frames overlap. This may also differ based on industry and company size.

Doesn’t quite all make sense yet? I’ll go into each a bit more below.

Product Manager

The Product Manager (PM) role is often described as being the “CEO” of the product — they are usually the ultimate decision makers on the product they own, but they solicit advice and information from all the other functions they work with.

The PM’s main job is to ensure the product is built correctly and launches on time. They need to understand the technical requirements of a product (hardware or software) because they need to be able to make decisions when at a crossroads — but you don’t need to have a technical background to be a PM (although this can be a company specific requirement).

Some of the best PMs I’ve worked with have 2 things in common: (1) great empathy for their customer, and (2) the ability to have a strong point of view, yet also be willing to change their minds and actions given new information. The former makes sure you are advocating for, and building, the right things, and the latter ensures that you can pivot based on the data.

Product Marketing Manager

A PMM’s job is two-fold: (1) making sure the team is building the right product for the market need they are addressing, and (2) taking the product to market (i.e., preparing for product launch) when it is ready.

PMMs work closely with the product team (PM, Engineering), the research team (User Experience/ Market Research), and sales or marketing teams (who are closest to the customer).

To be successful, PMMs need the ability to:

• Work and coordinate across functions: Knowing how to manage key internal and external stakeholders with different needs and incentives is crucial as they often need to coordinate between product & commercial teams to get their work done.
• Build empathy for the customer: A strong PMM needs to build a deep understanding of their customers’ needs and pain points to inform what the market needs, and thus what product teams need to be building.
• Think strategically: PMMs often need to think strategically about how their customer is likely to discover, engage with, & use their products, as well as understanding the sales resources that are available to them. PMMs will need to use this information to craft the messaging, positioning, and go to market plan that will drive product adoption.

Product Strategy

Product Strategists work on defining product strategy (as the title suggests!). However, Product Strategy roles can be confusing, because “product strategy” is seen as something a PM owns and drives.

The key difference is that a PM tends to own product strategy at a product or set of products level, while PS roles are often at a company or organization level (this does not have to be the case, it is very company dependent).

Product Strategists might define the strategic direction that a company should take beyond its existing products or look into ways to make the company more efficient across its existing portfolio.

Continuing the example of Uber from above, product strategists might be the ones deciding which new city or country Uber should expand to, or the ones who explored and determined that food delivery would be another business line to invest in.

Nuance Alert!

All the information provided above comes with a strong caveat: these roles tend to be defined at the company level and not all roles (even within the same company) are the same.

Smaller companies will often only have a PM and add PMM and PS roles as they grow. Some may have multiple types of PM and PMM roles, like a Technical PM, or a Business PMM and a Growth PMM. Some may even have Project Managers and Program Managers, but often these roles sit outside the traditional product teams.

Some companies have the same role titles, but the role itself could be different. I would strongly recommend talking to someone in the role you’re interested in, at the company you’re interested in before applying — this is the best way of understanding the specific requirements of that job at that company.

Resources I found helpful in my journey

Books

Cracking the PM Interview — this book is a must read if you’re new to the tech world. The first half is a great intro to the different product roles within a tech company and highlights the differences in these roles at various big tech companies. This is also a great book for building up your “tech speak” — you need to know the language used within tech companies to help you craft your resume and cover letters accordingly.

Blogs

1. The Product Manager, PM101
2. Product Marketing Alliance
3. Product Plan, on Product Strategy

People

Talking to someone who’s working in the type of role that you’re interested in is invaluable — I cannot stress this enough. This is the best job review you’re going to get, if you can find someone who can be honest with you. Leverage your network and start chatting.

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Do you agree/disagree with my classification of the different roles? Found this article helpful? Let me know in the comments below!