Product Manager Career Path: How You Can Advance by Career Stage

Key takeaways

• Being a product manager means helping organizations produce more innovative products, benefiting both business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) customers across industries.

• This career path can lead to rather lucrative roles. However, at each stage, you'll need to build your experience level, skills, and the types of tools you work with.

• Product managers are in demand due to organizations’ renewed focus on customer satisfaction and drive to innovate in an increasingly competitive landscape.

Discover different product manager job titles to consider if you're interested in this career path, as well as what the experience, skills, and tools requirements look like by career stage. Afterward, learn how to apply key product management skills, tools, and techniques to engage and manage key stakeholders and clients with the IBM Product Manager Professional Certificate. 

Product manager career path: roles to explore

Whether you're just starting your career in product management or looking to advance, there are various roles to consider. Let's review each one.

All salary data comes from Glassdoor as of November 2025.

Associate product manager

Average total pay (US): $91,151 

An associate product manager position is an entry-level role in product management. As an associate product manager, you’ll assist product managers and senior product managers with day-to-day tasks. For example, you might gather and analyze data or prepare reports.  

While working under a more experienced product manager, associate product managers can learn the ins and outs of the business, preparing them to pursue a more advanced role in the field. 

Product manager

Average total pay (US): $103,015 

The next step along the product manager career path is the mid-level product manager. In this role, you'll oversee the entire product lifecycle for an organization, from conception to release. You may also find more specialized product managers working on specific teams or for certain types of companies. For example, an AI product manager may specialize in developing AI products, or a growth product manager may focus on expanding an already developed product. 

Technical product manager

Average total pay (US): $140,393

A technical product manager is a product manager who focuses on a technical field. In this role, you are responsible for the lifecycle of a technical product. Your responsibilities align with those of a typical product manager role. However, you will likely have expert technical knowledge and work on areas of the product that need your technical input. 

Senior product manager

Average total pay (US): $1143,790 

A senior product manager role requires more experience than a product manager. In this position, you’ll often have more responsibility and focus more on high-level strategic thinking instead of execution.

Product director

Average total pay (US): $187,768 

A more advanced leadership role is that of product director. While experience as a product manager is required for this role, prior leadership experience is not necessarily required. As a product director, you may oversee multiple small teams within the large product management team. Thus, you may also oversee the development of multiple products at once. 

Vice president of product management

Average total pay (US): $179,289 

A vice president of product management leads the broader product teams. As such, team-building is a large portion of this role, including hiring, training, and developing product teams. As the vice president of product management, you’ll also ensure that the product projects undertaken by the product managers and their leadership team benefit the organization’s overall goals. Typically, reaching this level on the product manager career path requires at least a decade of experience in the field. 

Chief product officer

Average total pay (US): $198,892 

Lastly, the executive-level chief product officer (CPO) is the highest role you can achieve in the product manager career path. As a CPO, you oversee the entire product department and align the organization’s vision with its product executions. However, not all organizations have a CPO, and in those cases, the tasks may be taken over by the next-highest product management professional, such as the vice president of product management or the product director. 

Product manager: career stage overview

To give you a better sense of the experience you'll need to acquire, the skills you'll need to develop, and the tools you'll need to know by career stage, let's review that breakdown.

Entry-level product manager

If you're just beginning your product management career, you'll typically need a bachelor's degree in business, computer science, engineering, or a related field. At this stage, to build practical skills and subject knowledge, it may also be beneficial to obtain certification to demonstrate the extra effort you've taken to solidify your abilities.

Years of experience: 0-2

Skills:

• Basic understanding of the product development lifecycle

• Strong communication and presentation skills

• Analytical thinking and problem-solving abilities

• Basic project management skills

• Familiarity with agile methodologies

Tools:

• Productivity suites (Microsoft Office, Google Workspace)

• Basic project management tools (Trello, Asana, Jira)

• Fundamental data analysis tools (Excel, Google Sheets)

Mid-level product manager

After you've gained experience in product management, you can advance to a mid-level role. In addition to holding a bachelor's degree, which 72.2 percent of product managers have, you may also want to become a certified product manager or earn a graduate degree, such as a Master of Business Administration (MBA) [1].

Years of experience: 3-5 years in product management

Skills:

• In-depth understanding of the product development lifecycle

• Strong stakeholder management

• Data-driven decision making

• User research and customer interview skills

• Proficiency in agile and other product development methodologies

• Strategic thinking and market analysis

Tools:

• Advanced project management tools (Jira, Monday.com)

• Product roadmapping tools (Productboard, Aha!)

• Prototyping tools (Figma, Sketch)

• Analytics platforms (Google Analytics, Mixpanel)

Senior-level product manager

As a senior-level product manager, it's often preferred that you hold an advanced degree, such as an MBA. Companies also appreciate professionals who are committed to ongoing development and acquiring additional industry-specific knowledge.

Years of experience: 6+ years in product management, with leadership experience

Skills:

• Expert-level product strategy and vision development

• Cross-functional team leadership

• Product portfolio management

• Advanced financial modeling and budgeting

• Executive communication and influencing skills

• Mentoring and developing junior product managers

Tools:

• Enterprise-level product management suites (Atlassian, SAP)

• Advanced analytics and business intelligence tools (Tableau, Power BI)

• Product experimentation platforms (Optimizely, LaunchDarkly)

• Customer feedback and survey tools (UserVoice, SurveyMonkey)

Develop your product management skills on Coursera

Accelerate your career growth with a Coursera Plus subscription. When you enroll in either the monthly or annual option, you’ll get access to in-demand programs from Google, Meta, Microsoft, IBM, Adobe, and more.

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