Don’t Ask a PM: What’s a typical day as a product manager?
Product Managers are one of the top ten careers that are trending right now.
People from all different kinds of background are looking to transition into this role, from entry-level grads fresh out of college to workforce veterans looking to pivot in their career.
Granted, it’s a lucrative job with a high-paying salary and exciting responsibilities. PMs also have a lot of visibility within any company, even large, multi-national ones, which can accelerate your career.
There’s high demand for it, both from an employer and employee perspective.
Even here in Houston, TX, which isn’t the typical tech hub you would think of like Silicon Valley, there’s a lot of PM groups and meetups that have popped up in order to cater to this demand.
Since I started my full time career, I’ve been able to attend a number of these meetups, where both current and aspiring PMs meet together to share knowledge and insights. For me, it’s a great way to network with PMs from different companies and learn from their experiences while also giving back and sharing my own.
During these meetups, one conversation topic that always seems to come up is what product managers typically do every day, and that’s a question that’s been asked numerous times on all the online forums I visit.
What’s a day in the life of a PM?
And I get it. You’re going to be investing several years, decades even, with this career, and you want to know what you’re in for.
If you do a quick google search, every article that talks about a “day in the life of a product manager” will always preface with something like “Every day is different,” which isn’t very helpful.
But that’s the truth.
Product management is an interdisciplinary job. Not only are you working with people from different teams, you are also responsible for all these different deliverables.
Let’s look at the teams that you would typically get involved with as a software product manager. Some of them may be relevant depending on if you manage an enterprise or consumer product… or both.
- Designers (UX/UI designers, UX researchers, etc.)
- Engineers (software engineers, quality assurance engineers, etc.)
- Marketing (product, social, brand, communications, etc.)
- Sales (pre-sales, sales, account management, etc.)
- Finance (pricing, revenue, etc.)
- Services (customer support, training, etc.)
- PMO
- Legal
- Supply Chain (if the company has their own hardware)
Obviously, you won’t be working with each of these stakeholders on a daily basis, but they’re all going to be involved in the launch and management of your product at some point in time.
Then you look at some of the activities a PM is responsible for or is heavily involved in:
- Product vision (strategy, roadmap, MRD, PRD, POR, etc.)
- Customer interaction (interviews, focus groups, events, etc.)
- Marketing collateral (presentations, training materials, sales guides, etc.)
- Prioritization (features, bugs, etc.)
- Research (industry trends, competitors, academic, etc.)
And that’s without dealing with all the politics. A product manager is also a mediator, resolving conflicts and disputes between different teams.
Typically, an example that is shared would be when marketing or sales absolutely needs a feature that engineering just doesn’t have capacity for. But other examples from my experience are:
- Mediating between the engineers of different teams for feature prioritization
- Mediating between finance and services
- Mediating between stakeholders and higher-level management
As you can see, there is a ton of variance in the role and responsibilities of a product manager.
Not only is each day different, but you also have to take into account that each company is different and that each product may also be different.
A PM for one product may have completely different responsibilities or tasks compared to another PM. Maybe the other PM is in a different stage of the product lifecycle (pre-launch vs. post-launch for example). Maybe the markets they serve are completely different (enterprise vs. consumer).
One thing is for sure, though. As a product manager, be prepared to be in a lot of meetings. And by a lot, I mean, a lot.
If I assumed an 8 hour work day, then on a good day, I’ll be spending 3–4 hours of that time in meetings.
On a bad day, that number can go up to as high as 6–7.
And keep in mind, you’re not going to be the main facilitator or active participant in all of these meetings all the time. In some of these meetings, you’re there to observe or to be on stand by in case someone asks a question that only you know how to answer. There’ll be meetings where it’s a simple 1:1, while in others you’ll be a single face in an audience of a dozens.
So be prepared to have your calendar packed with all these different meetings. You’re going to have to manually reserve time slots just to get your own deliverables completed.
But that’s one of the special wonders of the job, and the challenges that I face every day is what keeps me going. It’s unpredictable in nature, and there’s something new I learn everyday.
So when you ask a product manager what a PM does on a daily basis, always take their experiences with a grain of salt.
My Asks to the Readers
I’m always interested in hearing more about your own experiences as a PM.
- How reflective is my content to your experience? Mostly agree? Mostly disagree?
- What’s something about the role that surprised you when you first started out?
Thanks for reading!
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