PM Levels - What do they mean?
Satish Mummareddy
Ex - Meta, Yelp, Yahoo. Helping people develop leadership skills and cross career chasms.
What are levels?
Each company may have its own numbering system and terminology, but the underlying concept remains similar.
What Do Levels Actually Mean?
Levels indicate the complexity and altitude of problems you are held accountable for—not just what you "own," but what you're expected to deliver on, with real consequences if you don’t.
A higher level means taking ownership & accountability for problems with lager market, product, execution, or organizational complexity
Understanding Complexity at Different Levels
1. Product Complexity
Product complexity is about the altitude of customer problems a PM is responsible for:
Thus, levels reflect the altitude of customer problems a PM is accountable for.
2. Execution Complexity
Execution complexity comes from the scale and difficulty of execution, which can be influenced by:
3. Organizational & Leadership Complexity
This type of complexity arises when navigating internal structures, decision-making, and alignment:
What It Takes to Move Up Levels
If you want to grow to higher levels, the key question to ask yourself is:
"What level of complexity—product, execution, and leadership—am I willing to be held accountable for, even if it means risking my job?"
Higher levels come with greater risks and responsibilities, but they also provide the opportunity to drive larger-scale impact within a company.
If you want to grow in your PM career by learning a core set of career frameworks and tools to improve core PM skills check out my Free 10 hr Accelerate Your PM Career course.
Syllabus
Product & Technology Strategy | Award-Winning AI Innovator | Expert in creating Enterprise & Consumer Technology Solutions
2 周There’s also a different expectation, with the levels, in different industries
Product Strategist | Pricing & Packaging | Revenue Growth | Market Expansion
2 周Great post outlining the levels! But not all product titles are equivalent. Sometimes a PM title doesn’t match responsiblies and results because of: company size, HR agility, or simply someone filling a need on the job. Do you agree?
Director of Product Management @ Applied Systems
3 周Awesome post, Satish Mummareddy This question "What level of complexity—product, execution, and leadership—am I willing to be held accountable for, even if it means risking my job?"—really resonated with me. It’s also a great place to apply your principle: ‘Do the job before you get the job.’ For those aspiring to move up, taking on some of the responsibilities from their boss’s plate can be a great way to test the waters and see if they truly enjoy and want to thrive in higher-level roles before making the leap.
Product at Kajabi | Creator Economy | Marketplaces | Fintech | Ex-Linktree, Airtasker, Expedia, Vodafone |
3 周Great post! I love the clarity here Satish Mummareddy. I remembered early days in my career there was just “PM” or “Senior PM”, the gap between PM and Senior was like 10 years! I was like do I need to stay on this pay grade for 10 years before I get a senior PM? Lol I’m glad the industry now has broken down the stepping stones for the different levels of product people. However I do think there will need to be consolidation at the top levels like staff, distinguished or principal. But it’s going in the right direction.