Principal Product Manager Jobs - follow up story

Key characteristics of a senior individual contributor (IC) product manager

What happened after writing a recent Product Management IRL article? These insights are for premium subscribers to Product Management IRL.

This week’s backstory is about what it looks like to be a Senior+ / Principal Product Manager:

What Does It Look Like to Be a Senior+ / Principal Product Manager?

What Prompted this Article?

No surprise…I read a lot of newsletters! Caleb Mellas at Level Up Software Engineering wrote an article about senior engineers (most of this article is now behind a paywall). Caleb discussed the key characteristics of staff engineers.

I was struck by how similar a staff engineer role is to a principal product manager.

Senior individual contributors (ICs) generally need to:

• be a force multiplier across their organizations

• handle multiple projects and multiple teams

• build cross-functional relationships

• set a good example

Caleb’s article compelled me to write this article on the key characteristics of a director-level principal product manager role.

What Happened After this Article?

I have come back to this article a few times to keep myself on track with improvements. When I get feedback, I check for coverage of that characteristic.

Here are the feedback items: