[Sarki]

Junior positions I think not, especially as a Product Manager (well depending the size of your structure) is supposed to have lots of contacts, all the time, even when he's overloaded with tasks.

I know I wasn't in the same role, just mentionning what I witnessed regarding Product Managers where I worked in the past.. Having been a Product Owner for a couple of years in a 10k+ employees international company, just to name a few guys you need to meet regularly for the sake of your product, from makers to users :

Developpers teams, QA teams, Product Support Teams, Marketing teams, Finance teams, Sales teams (Global, Regional), Delivery teams (Global, Regional), Training teams (See a trend here?), Customers (from time to time, not counting support escalations).

Out of these exchanges you get your product needs and issues which you need to rationalise, plan and translate into features and fixes, plan a macro and micro roadmap including slightly-expected hotfixes, service packs, long term roadmap (to give your customers a sense of what's coming - up to 5y forecast sometimes), adding also various compliance rules on top of this (depending the market) and a frosting made of turn over rates plus international culture complexity.

Of course what I'm mentionning is not the whole world, but as far as I can tell it's a good picture of what you can expect from someone doing decent international product management.

Therefore, a junior Product Manager would be pretty much difficult to pull, unless you're hiring people who had the opportunity to cross the intellectual and business bridges (consumer/producer/user/support) a couple of times in their carreer (imagine yourself drafting your new product roadmap while travelling a plane to show up on site on a Friday in a customer's office to defend your product against a missing/crippling feature and try to propose a mitigation plan with the help of the local delivery team).

A Product Manager is in a sense a one man band, half Project Manager, half Architect, Salesman, Support Manager, Training manager, end user, customer, etc.

So, Junior without someone to back you up, I don't think so. Junior without having some experience of the Trenches, hardly, as you can easily be reckless toward the teams mentionned above and also miss some red flags ("ivory tower" syndrome).

If you find such an opportunity, be wary on the context and the expected work. This role can be more stressing and alienating than being a Project Manager because you are supposed to represent a Product in any aspect of it.

[sksareen1]

As an Associate PM moving into full ownership of a product i.e. full PM role, this is the most accurate description of the job I've seen yet. I like to describe the job as sitting in between the cross functional areas (Marketing, Sales, Dev, Exec/Management, Finance, and a whole lot of more logistical groups) to: 1. Own and sculpt the product roadmap and vision by working across the functional groups and 2. Keep everyone on track for the goal and vision of the product. It means supporting sales, leading roadmap discussions, haggling with development, defending development from Sales, using Sales as an information source to go to Marketing, dictating a plan to Marketing, and making sure it all aligns with your vision for the product. Above all, it's owning the P/L and being on the hook when something good or bad happens. That said, I've seen PM roles differ a lot between companies, culture and products, such that a cloud-startup product PM may have a VERY different role than an on-premise software enterprise PM. For example, I have minimal development experience but have yet to see it as a serious impediment to working with my team.

[Sarki]

Glad to see that my understanding was correct, also congratulations on the new role :)

If I may give you one huge hint on your product's SWOT at least functionally speaking and especially in a global market: Ask your delivery teams, basically they're your eyes and ears on the harsh reality of the trenches.

After being a Product Owner I became a Global Delivery Consultant, and you can't imagine how much insight you get from the guys if you find the right mean.

Personally the best approach I took was a give and take quarterly worldwide meeting with the delivery experts and their top management to list the good the bad and the ugly from their own perspective (in any aspect of the product) while product management was providing insights on what was coming and a light update on the looks of the ongoing development schedule.

I can guarantee you that 3 Regional Delivery Heads telling you that feature XXX must be reworked is invaluable info and something you can't get from sales, support teams or even your own feeling. Added bonus: They will provide you with realistic business scenarios and expected behaviors and would be interested in taking part of the validation process for you.

Likewise, delivery guys will be more relaxed as they will be aware of the development fitness ahead of the official schedule and therefore won't sale features at risk (they're in projects all the time, they have to deal with the unexpected on a daily basis).

Because Delivery Teams are the closest to the product they are the first ones to proof it, support it and also bridge all the gaps for your customers. The rest is only paperwork and planning.

[sksareen1]

Thanks for the advice, really appreciate the guidance. I hadn't thought too much of Delivery as a source of feedback, but given what you mentioned I see real value in doing so.