If there comes a point in your life, when you feel that you are led to creative thinking, problem-solving, and curiosity, it is quite possible that as a career option product management would be a good fit for you. A product manager’s job is about solving problems for the customers. In this blog we will look at various levels of product managers that the product management domain offers you. 

Associate Product Manager

Assembling data, doing customer research, working with stakeholders, and creating new product features are all duties of an associate product manager. They collaborate with one or more product managers and help them be more productive in their work. Many of the duties performed by product managers are also performed by APMs, including, market & consumer research, gathering and coordinating product needs with corporate objectives, collaborating with all relevant parties to realize the product vision, creating new features for products, planning to create product strategy, etc. 

In some companies, APMs don't collaborate directly on product development with the tech team. Also, APMs may even have their own dedicated product team with which they collaborate in other organizations. Regarding product responsibility, APMs typically work on new features for an established product rather than the whole thing. 

Junior Product Manager

A junior product manager assists the product manager with the creation and introduction of new products. They frequently connect with data, clients, and other stakeholders to generate fresh concepts and approaches to enhance the product line. 

Some primary duties that junior product managers typically handle include, defining the product vision and product strategy in cooperation with the product team, examining the buyer persona and the target market, speaking with clients to obtain feedback, creating the product plan and the product specifications, examining data to identify issues and possible solutions, collaborating with other departments to meet production deadlines, readying products for launch, etc.

Product Manager

A product manager describes what success looks like for a product, pinpoints the consumer needs and bigger corporate goals that a product/feature will address, and rallies a team to make that vision a reality. What falls under the intersection of user experience, technology and business goals for a company when talking about a product, is taken care of by a PM. 

Some primary duties that junior product managers typically handle include, recognizing and expressing user requirements, market research and creating competitive evaluations, creating a product's vision, bringing stakeholders together to support the product's goal, putting emphasis on a product's strengths and qualities, and fostering a common brain among larger teams to encourage independent judgment, etc. 

Senior Product Manager

Leading product managers while coordinating with engineering, marketing, sales, and other departments is the senior product managers' job. They create the product's needs and roadmaps and incorporate consumer feedback into the plan for the product. 

They frequently collaborate with senior managers such as the director of product management, senior project managers, senior technical product managers, and senior product marketing managers. Product managers, engineering managers, product marketing specialists, design experts, associate product managers, software engineers, financial analysts, and the complete product team make up the senior product management. 

Senior product managers are also in charge of marketing their products. For the products, they typically create a long-term vision and strategy. They then share this plan with all parties involved. They also, require in-depth knowledge of project management, product marketing, technology, and finances. They must be able to create budgets, conduct specialized market research, and work cooperatively with numerous partners at once.

Product Lead

A new product's idea, development, testing, and launch are all under the control of the product lead. They are responsible for most of the upper-level practical management, including developing the product road map and making sure that all cross-functional teams and stakeholders agree. 

Depending on the company they work for, a lead product manager may also have additional titles. In larger businesses, product leaders have multiple junior product managers reporting to them, and they work with a chief product owner (CPO) to create the best possible product. 

Some primary duties that junior product managers typically handle include, creating product strategy, managing the development process, analyzing product metrics, optimizing user experience, streamlining product launch, collaborating with stakeholders, etc. 

Product Director

Depending on the workplace or industry, a product director may have different responsibilities. Their duties often include managing the product development operations to ensure efficiency and smooth flow, coming up with plans to enhance procedures, gathering pertinent information like sales and customer feedback, and working with other departments to produce new goods and services. As a director, it is also imperative to enforce the company's laws and rules, including its mission and vision, as well as to inspire departments to achieve their goals. 

Some primary duties that junior product managers typically handle include, collaboration for translating product needs into requirements, evaluating product proposals, supervising functions of other people, keeping the stakeholders up to date, overseeing the product line lifecycle, engagement with customers for gaining insights, developing product & marketing strategies, conducting product research & market analyses, etc. 

VP Product

Although they both serve as team leaders; the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and Vice President of Product (VP of Product) support one another. The VP of Product may oversee organizing a team to carry out strategic goals, namely developing a product roadmap. He or she creates the technical vision for a certain company's product. 

Within an organization, vice presidents of product act as the developers and engineers' point of contact. They are very well known since they develop innovative digital goods that greatly influence outcomes. The intersection between product strategy and technology depends on their position. 

Some primary duties that junior product managers typically handle include, acting as CTO’s advisor at times, determining product & operational issues and resolving them, implementing productive transformation from planning to execution, updates on latest product developments, collaborating with business partners. 

Chief Product Officer

A chief product officer (CPO) is a C-level executive who oversees the organization's overall product strategy and execution. The duties of a CPO start throughout the stages of product innovation and vision, continue through the marketing campaign, and continue after the product is released. Typically, the company's chief executive officer is the chief product officer (CEO). The position is also known as the head of product or vice president (VP) of product. 

A CPO's main responsibility is to guide and support product management teams in the development of products that are valuable to the user and the company. Chief product officers must do this by coordinating the needs and objectives of the firm and the product.