Beyond Generalist and Specialist: Mapping Product Management Specializations
Exploring the four types of product work and how they map to different Product Management specializations.
Beyond Generalist and Specialist: Mapping Product Management Specializations
As a Product Manager, you've likely heard the debate around whether you should be a Product Generalist or Specialist. But in reality, there are more nuanced Product Management specializations that go beyond this binary view.
People often don't recognize product specializations because we tend to think about all product work as the same. We just apply the basic Product Management skills to every product area. However, there are fundamentally different types of product work which require different tools, processes, skill sets, and success metrics.
Fareed Mosavat and Casey Winters discuss this in detail in their piece Product Work Beyond Product-Market Fit. They outline four types of product work:
Feature Work
Creating and capturing value by extending a product's functionality and market into incremental and adjacent areas. Focused on solving customer pain points through new product features like search, community, internationalization, newsfeed, and other critical user experiences.
Growth Work
Connecting customers to existing value by capturing more of the current market. Focused on the customer journey and metrics like acquisition, activation, retention and revenue. Manages parts of the experience like signup, onboarding, referrals, pricing, and conversions.
Scaling Work
Removing bottlenecks that inhibit the team's ability to ship new features and move fast. Focused on internal tools, data, and systems needed to scale the product. Manages trust and safety, security, data, machine learning, payments and more.
Product-Market Fit Expansion
Expanding into adjacent markets and increasing the ceiling on PMF in a non-incremental way. Focused on identifying and expanding into new opportunities through exploring adjacent markets, developing new verticals, and creating new products.
Many PMs, and others outside Product, believe a PM should be an expert across all four of these from day one. But in reality, mastery of one area should translate to breadth across multiple areas over time.
Product Management Specializations & Key Skills
Each of the four product work types directly maps to a Product Management specialization. Here are some examples:
Core Product Manager
Focused on solving customer pain points through product features like search, community, internationalization, newsfeed, and other critical user experiences.
Key skills: user empathy, holistic thinking, end-to-end user experience design, research, problem and hypothesis driven
Close collaboration with: Research, Design, Support
Example: A LinkedIn PM working on the social graph and connections experience.
Growth Product Manager
Focused on the customer journey and metrics like acquisition, activation, retention and revenue. Manages parts of the experience like signup, onboarding, referrals, pricing, and conversions.
Key skills: experimentation, optimization, marketing, financial modeling, data analysis
Close collaboration: Marketing, Finance, Data
Example: A Dropbox PM focused on increasing free to paid conversions.
Platform Product Manager
Focused on internal tools, data, and systems needed to scale the product. Manages trust and safety, security, data, machine learning, payments and more.
Key skills: technical knowledge, cross-functional stakeholder management, efficiency, technical project management
Close collaboration: Engineering, Data Science, Legal
Example: An Etsy PM managing payment infrastructure and risk.
Innovation Product Manager
Focused on identifying and expanding into new opportunities through exploring adjacent markets, developing new verticals, and creating new products.
Key skills: comfort with ambiguity, visioning, PMF discovery, storytelling, fundraising
Close collaboration: Executives, Research, Customers
Example: A Meta PM exploring opportunities in the metaverse.
There are also sub-specialties within each area, based on vectors like specific product type or funnel stage. For example, a Growth PM could specialize in acquisition, activations, or retention.
Leveraging Background Experience
Your previous work experience can make it easier to transition into certain PM specializations:
Think about how your background maps to specializations where you can create unique value.
Using Specializations to Progress Your Career
As you advance in your PM career, consider how to strategically gain exposure across specializations:
Specializations allow you to go deep in an area over time, setting you up for breadth across PM skills. Pick your focused specialties strategically to propel your career progression.