Let's explore the differences between all three disciplines!

Well, for those aspiring or early PMs who want to understand each domain more deeply, I reckon a common question would be: does this matter for your long-term career?

Well, obviously they do — but there are many nuances we should uncover regarding this whole topic.

I’m aware that many articles have been written to dig into this. Many may have dived into these analyses without chatting with real TPMs and project managers to get a full comprehensive view. Additionally, if you're ever interested in the gaming space, there exists the role of a "game producer" - a job likened to that of a project manager. I’ve had the pleasure to speak with with many game producers from studios like Undead Labs (Creator of State of Decay), product managers from Xbox, project managers from various industries, and TPMs from Zynga and Apple to learn more about the various “PM” jobs within their cross-functional teams! Here, I’ll reveal what I’ve learned throughout my coffee chats.

We’ll dive into this via the following format:

1) Product manager job responsibilities

2) Program Manager job responsibilities

3) Project Manager job responsibilities

4) Should you only focus on one track?

I’ll flesh these pointers out at a high level out of respect for how vastly different responsibilities can be from role-to-role. These will be my general descriptions that attempts to open the umbrella as wide as possible.

Let’s get started.

1. Product Manager Job Responsibilities:

Being a PM myself for the Bing team at Microsoft, I can help give my input:

• Define the strategy and general direction of your product/feature, and how that aligns with organizational direction, leadership, business impact, and goals for success. This could be in the form of a roadmap, and/or a strategy document that highlights how your product will win the market.
• Analyze data and customer/user feedback to improve product current functions and capabilities.
• Evangelize the product/feature across various platforms both internally and externally.
• Conceptualize and then collaborate with engineering, design, and other teams to strategize and execute projects that achieve product goals or KPIs.

Now, this is just a general slice of the pie. Many product managers, including me, do more than just this — some also manage and update backlogs, some help with marketing, some work with user research more, and some even dig into code.

2. Program Manager Job Responsibilities:

A fun, relatively more niche role yet equally as important!

• Drive technical projects (high or low level) across cross-functional teams to achieve a product goal, internal necessity, or KPI metric.
• Work closely with engineering managers and their teams to define project success and the execution plan on getting there.
• Participate in internal scrums or project reviews to add feedback for software processes or unblock engineers on current tasks/issues.
• Ensure timely product or project delivery within schedule while keeping track of progress with engineers, IT, or other technical members of staff.

3. Project Manager Job Responsibilities:

Project managers are as vast as they are special - their roles may bear the most breadth in terms of variety. Here are just some responsibilities you'll find:

• Establish smooth and effective collaboration among cross functional teams while mitigating friction in project and execution processes.
• Manage, schedule, and outline development tasks together with stakeholders, engineers, designers, marketing, and other teams.
• Support the execution of projects by ensuring that all tasks are delivered on time based on schedule by keeping track of progress with various teams.
• Check in with various teams across the project to understand technical or business-related details for a full picture on execution, all while upkeeping team morale and unblocking members whenever possible.
• Ensure the execution of the project is delivered on time, and report all potential delays, blockers, or dependencies to stakeholders constantly.

Again, we’re just scratching the surface. Depending on the team size, your organization’s objectives, and other factors, these responsibilities are subject to thousands of nuances.

4. Should you only focus on one track?

Let me pass on a piece of advice I’ve received from numerous product and tech leaders:

Work on your core set of skills/crafts that define your career identity. Focus less on that “Title” and more on the actual skills which are valuable in the present and future job market for your discipline.

This is definitely true to an extent. Why bother scavenging for the job titles if the job itself doesn’t exactly entail work that would be considered valuable for your career growth?

Well, I consider this a case where both sides of the spectrum have their flaws. For example, a fair argument to the quote above would be, “More and more folks want to jump into product now. Specializations on industry, fields, and even titles will definitely matter.”

And that also lays some truth. So now what?

Thanks to my discussions with seniors and past mentors, my general advice to students and those with limited experience is: in the early years of your career, focus on your craft. In the world of product/TPM/project management, that means maybe a mixture of the three groups of responsibilities I laid out above. Perhaps it’s taking a pointer from each section and combining them for your own career identity. What's most important is to pin point the exact skills you need to improve on to better your career for the long-term. For example, these could simply be:

• Stakeholder management
• Public speaking or leading sensitive meetings
• Leadership skills
• Writing product strategy documents
• Technical knowledge for product development
• Becoming a SME (subject matter expert) on a particular business domain.

Focus on being so good they can’t ignore you (one of my favorite self-help books of all time). Then, once you’ve built that strong set of foundational skills, hone in on a specific career track in which you know you can achieve a balance of long-term growth and fulfillment. Basically, take all that career capital you’ve built (AKA the career or project accomplishments you’ve attained), and charge in on the specific direction you want to go.

And finally, there still exists the question of a specific industry focus. Gaming, life sciences, ML, search engines, healthcare, etc. — wouldn’t health tech recruiters prefer a PM that has healthcare experience rather than someone that comes from gaming?

Perhaps there’s a likelier chance that the one with a closer background bags the interview or even the job. But that shouldn’t deter you from focusing on that strong foundation — because after all, that strong craft of yours with a pedigree of achievements can bring you a wider window of opportunities both in and outside the industry.

About Me

My name is Kasey Fu. I’m passionate about writing, technology, AI, gaming, and storytelling 😁.

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