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What a product manager really does

You decide what the team builds next and get everyone to agree, without being anyone's boss.

There's no official occupation called product manager. These figures are for marketing managers, the closest match. The job details on this page describe marketing managers.

Try it free, about 105 minutesSee the real tasks
Median pay, May 2025$166,790
Job growth, 2025-35+7%
Typical entry educationBachelor's degree
Preparation (O*NET Job Zone)Considerable Preparation Needed

What the work involves

8 of the 21 tasks O*NET lists for marketing managers, most important first.

  • Formulate, direct, or coordinate marketing activities or policies to promote products or services, working with advertising or promotion managers.
  • Use sales forecasting or strategic planning to ensure the sale and profitability of products, lines, or services, analyzing business developments and monitoring market trends.
  • Identify, develop, or evaluate marketing strategy, based on knowledge of establishment objectives, market characteristics, and cost and markup factors.
  • Direct the hiring, training, or performance evaluations of marketing or sales staff and oversee their daily activities.
  • Evaluate the financial aspects of product development, such as budgets, expenditures, research and development appropriations, or return-on-investment and profit-loss projections.
  • Develop pricing strategies, balancing firm objectives and customer satisfaction.
  • Initiate market research studies, or analyze their findings.
  • Compile lists describing product or service offerings.

What the days are like

Most of the time goes to
  • Establishing and Maintaining Interpersonal Relationships. Developing constructive and cooperative working relationships with others, and maintaining them over time.
  • Updating and Using Relevant Knowledge. Keeping up-to-date technically and applying new knowledge to your job.
  • Developing Objectives and Strategies. Establishing long-range objectives and specifying the strategies and actions to achieve them.
  • Selling or Influencing Others. Convincing others to buy merchandise/goods or to otherwise change their minds or actions.
  • Communicating with People Outside the Organization. Communicating with people outside the organization, representing the organization to customers, the public, government, and other external sources. This information can be exchanged in person, in writing, or by telephone or e-mail.
What workers report
  • E-Mail: 100% responded “Every day.”
  • Telephone Conversations: 90% responded “Every day.”
  • Determine Tasks, Priorities and Goals: 88% responded “A lot of freedom.”
  • Work With or Contribute to a Work Group or Team: 83% responded “Extremely important.”
  • Spend Time Sitting: 78% responded “Continually or almost continually.”

Work styles that matter most

InitiativeA tendency to be proactive and take on extra responsibilities and tasks that may fall outside of one's required work role.
Self-ConfidenceA tendency to believe in one's work-related capabilities and ability to control one's work-related outcomes.
Leadership OrientationA tendency to lead, take charge, offer opinions, and provide direction at work.
InnovationA tendency to be inventive, to be imaginative, and to adopt new perspectives on ways to accomplish work.
AdaptabilityA tendency to be open to and comfortable with change, new experiences, or ideas at work.

How people get into it

Both O*NET proxies sit in Job Zone 4. For Marketing Managers, 80% of surveyed workers say a bachelor's degree is required; for Project Management Specialists, 64%. Software PMs often move in from engineering, design, analytics, consulting or customer facing roles after a few years, or start through associate PM programs after a bachelor's degree.

The Firstday trial, easy to hard

Three simulated tasks at Ledgerly, a fictional company, with AI coworkers who message you, react to your work and coach with questions. Nobody scores you.

EasyWrite a spec for invoice remindersAbout 20 minutes.
MiddleRank next quarter's roadmapAbout 35 minutes.
HardUntangle a promise sales madeAbout 50 minutes.

What the trial can't show: The trial cannot show the slow build of trust with an engineering team over months, real customer calls, watching a launch succeed or fail in live metrics, or the politics of a large company. It also leaves out the hiring, trade show and promotion parts of the Marketing Managers data, which most software PMs do not do.

Reading about it is one thing.

Find out how the work feels to you before you spend on a degree, course or job change. Your first trial is free.

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Job titles people in this occupation report

BD Director (Business Development Director) · BD Manager (Business Development Manager) · Brand Manager · Market Development Executive · Market Development Manager · Marketing Communications Manager · Marketing Coordinator · Marketing Director · Product Manager · Product Marketing Manager

Tasks, work activities, work context, work styles, reported titles and Job Zone: O*NET OnLine, 11-2021.00 Marketing Managers. This page includes information from the O*NET 31.0 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license. O*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA.

Pay, growth and entry education: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Outlook Handbook, marketing managers, May 2025 wages and 2025-35 projections.