When I started at Eventbrite, I put together this career guide for a few reasons:

Level up the expectation of the PM role. When I started pushing on performance and promotion recommendations, a lot of responses I got was that the person was only good at a quarter of the role.

To provide clear expectations for the managers so they could manage performance and have a guide for how to get someone promoted.

To create a filter for the existing team, that if you aren’t able to do one of these things then your progress is going to be limited.

If you are a product manager, a suggestion is that you should understand what happens behind “closed doors” with these career guides.

A manager is first going to look at a person and compare them to a guide. They will then likely put that person into a framework like a 9 box (

https://tomtunguz.com/nine-box-matrix-hr/

) and make a recommendation. The VP or C-Level exec will then pressure test the recommendation with specific examples of how they did certain things within the career guide.

The good managers will already have examples. But you should be arming your manager with examples they can easily use. Once a quarter look at a level above and be honest with yourself how you are doing.

These were the attributes I decided on for Eventbrite. But they can change and should be adapted to each specific team. A few things to think about when you are adapting:

Stage of Company - In smaller orgs, you might not have dedicated user researchers or data analysts. So the role of a PM might have more breadth to it.

Product Type - PMs of an enterprise product might prioritize highly customer-facing skills since they are going to interact with big enterprise customers and deprioritize other things.

Founder Philosophy - For another high-growth company I advised, the founders had slightly different views on product management. Their top priority in a product manager was helping teams move faster. So we had a big focus on velocity in their career guide. Where at Eventbrite, we focused on quality first and then moving faster.

The needs of the org will change as the company grows so you should set expectations that these attributes will evolve with the company.

My philosophy at Eventbrite is that to get a promotion the average of these attributes need to be at the next level. That means you could be spiking in a few boxes, and doing a little of the others. They didn’t have to all be spiking but you needed to show capability at the next level in each box.

Casey Winters

I created this guide to level up the Product Manager role at Eventbrite while providing clear expectations for managers to support conversations around performance and promotions.

Ability to lead to answers for relevant problem and product areas, with corresponding internal thought leadership. Includes: brainstorming, structuring thinking, driving strategy, becoming go to expert.

Driving results and catching mistakes across increasing scope. Includes: writing clear specs with use cases, delivering products small and large on time and with few bugs, navigating options to deal with bumps in the road, achieving outcomes.

Product Manager career leveling guide at Eventbrite

Product Management IC Career Guide

Leadership and Communication

Product Strategy

Product Execution

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