Product Manager Competency Framework — by Role
Six competencies, four roles (APM → PM → SPM → GPM). Within each role, Emerging / Developing / Proficient / Strong are ratings against that role's bar — so "Proficient" means more at SPM than at APM. The bar rises at every role, which is why the top of one role reads a lot like the bottom of the next; that overlap is deliberate and is what promotion readiness looks like.
Two competencies — Experimentation & Data Literacy and Customer & Growth Insight — look different on Growth vs Core in practice. The bar is identical; only the evidence differs by surface. See the companion examples sheet when it's unclear what "meets the bar" looks like for a given PM. The other four, including Craft, read the same on both teams.
What each competency measures
Experimentation & Data Literacy — Uses data and experimentation to validate assumptions before committing to product decisions. Chooses the validation method that fits the question — controlled tests, holdouts, longitudinal cohorts, or qualitative research — defines clear success metrics, and turns results into decisions. Anticipates risks before launch and strengthens the team's culture of learning through evidence.
Customer & Growth Insight — Understands the full customer journey and combines behavioral data with qualitative signal to find opportunities others miss. Goes beyond reporting what happened to the why behind behavior, and at the highest level builds the loops that compound — acquisition and activation flywheels, or engagement and retention loops.
Craft & Product Vision — Produces work that feels considered rather than merely functional, and can tell great from good. Holds a quality bar across flow, copy, timing, and feel — and beyond catching flaws, has a generative sense of what should exist to make an experience delightful and worth returning to.
Business Impact & Prioritization — Frames product decisions in terms of measurable business outcomes. Balances customer needs, business objectives, and effort to prioritize work that drives meaningful impact on conversion, retention, engagement, or revenue.
Product Strategy & Execution — Plans and drives product initiatives end-to-end with clarity and ownership. Breaks down complex problems, manages cross-functional delivery, and adapts execution as new information and results come in.
Collaboration & Product Leadership — Builds trust and alignment across cross-functional teams. Communicates priorities clearly, incorporates diverse perspectives, and demonstrates the accountability and follow-through that lets teams move fast and ship well.
APM — Associate Product Manager
| Competency | Emerging | Developing | Proficient | Strong |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Experimentation & Data Literacy | Needs guidance framing hypotheses, defining success metrics, and interpreting results. Relies on others to read dashboards and tends to focus on outputs over the customer behavior underneath. | Frames straightforward hypotheses and runs a basic validation with support — an A/B test or a simpler before/after read. Reads dashboards independently and begins connecting results to customer behavior. | Independently designs and runs straightforward validations, defines success metrics clearly, and derives actionable insights. Picks a sensible method for the question and validates assumptions before recommending. | Proactively spots opportunities to test, anticipates common risks before launch, and consistently uses evidence to influence decisions. Shows real analytical curiosity and improves the rigor of experimentation on the team. |
| Customer & Growth Insight | Relies on others to identify pain points and see where users drop off. Views metrics individually rather than as part of a journey. | Understands the key stages of the user journey and spots obvious conversion, engagement, or retention opportunities from feedback and metrics. Begins connecting problems to improvements. | Independently analyses behavior and identifies friction across the journey — a funnel drop-off or a point where a habit breaks — proposing targeted, evidence-backed improvements. Curious about why, not just what happened. | Uncovers nuanced behaviors and opportunities others overlook, combining qual and quant to improve the experience and influence priorities. Balances rapid iteration with genuine customer understanding. |
| Craft & Product Vision | Ships to spec and takes design and copy direction well; beginning to notice when something feels off, not just when it's broken. | Catches rough edges in their own features — flow, copy, timing, feel — before handoff, rather than shipping around them. | Holds a consistent quality bar on their own work and can say why one version feels better than another, not just that it does. | Pushes the craft of the features they own beyond the brief, and their design and copy partners trust their eye. |
| Business Impact & Prioritization | Primarily focused on completing assigned work; developing a sense of how initiatives ladder up to conversion, retention, and revenue. | Connects individual tasks to product and business goals. Reviews relevant metrics and begins weighing customer value, business impact, and effort when prioritizing. | Frames initiatives in measurable outcomes — conversion, retention, engagement, revenue — and makes thoughtful prioritization calls balancing customer needs, business goals, and effort. | Shows sound judgment by identifying high-impact opportunities and making informed trade-offs. Knows where rapid execution creates value and where more time improves the long-term outcome. |
| Product Strategy & Execution | Understands the goals of assigned initiatives and contributes to execution with guidance. Learning product planning, prioritization, and delivery. | Independently manages smaller initiatives from definition through launch. Coordinates well with Engineering and Design and keeps stakeholders informed of progress and risk. | Shows ownership by planning and driving initiatives end-to-end. Breaks complex problems into workstreams, anticipates execution risk, and adapts as new information and results arrive. | Goes beyond assigned work to improve delivery and product quality. Strong ownership, proactively resolves blockers, and consistently delivers customer value through thoughtful execution. |
| Collaboration & Product Leadership | Builds positive working relationships within the immediate team and communicates progress openly. Welcomes feedback and different perspectives. | Collaborates effectively with Engineering, Design, Data, and other stakeholders. Shares context clearly, seeks alignment, and folds feedback into decisions. | Builds trust across teams by communicating priorities clearly, facilitating constructive discussion, and balancing viewpoints. Accountable and follows through. | Positively influences team culture through collaboration, curiosity, and humility. Encourages open discussion, supports teammates, and builds credibility through reliable execution. |
PM — Product Manager
| Competency | Emerging | Developing | Proficient | Strong |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Experimentation & Data Literacy | Independently frames hypotheses and runs experiments for a product area. Selects appropriate success metrics but may need guidance under ambiguity or competing priorities. | Runs multiple validations in parallel and interprets them reliably, matching method and cadence to each — fast tests where iteration is cheap, holdouts or longer reads where effects are slow to isolate. Uses results to influence prioritization and roadmap. | Develops an experimentation roadmap aligned to product goals. Anticipates risks, challenges assumptions, and keeps raising experiment quality. Uses data to influence cross-functional decisions and direction. | Builds a strong experimentation culture on the team by promoting evidence-based decisions. Coaches others on method choice and rigor — not just test volume — and spots high-value learning opportunities before they're obvious. |
| Customer & Growth Insight | Understands customer journeys and independently identifies key friction points using quant and qual signal. Begins recognizing behavioral patterns beyond individual metrics. | Uses research, experimentation, and analytics to uncover meaningful opportunities across acquisition, activation, and retention. Prioritizes by customer value and business impact, not isolated metrics. | Shows deep understanding of behavior across the product, identifies high-leverage opportunities, validates assumptions through experimentation, and influences roadmap priorities with customer insight. | Anticipates changing needs and spots emerging opportunities before metrics make them obvious. Combines empathy with analytical thinking to influence long-term product and growth direction. |
| Craft & Product Vision | Holds a quality bar across their features and pushes back on rough edges rather than shipping around them. | Owns the felt quality of their product area — flow, copy, motion, moment-to-moment feel — not just that it works. | Shapes experiences meant to feel delightful and sticky and makes deliberate craft trade-offs; can articulate why one direction is better. | Sets the quality bar for their area and has a generative sense of what should exist to make it feel great — not just how to polish what's already planned. |
| Business Impact & Prioritization | Independently prioritizes using customer impact, business value, and engineering effort. Growing command of ARR, conversion, retention, engagement, and ROI in decisions. | Makes informed prioritization calls balancing customer outcomes, business goals, technical feasibility, and constraints. Regularly measures the impact of what ships. | Frames investments around measurable outcomes and articulates trade-offs clearly. Focuses teams on high-impact work and avoids low-value work. | Consistently identifies strategic, high-value opportunities. Makes hard prioritization calls confidently, balancing short-term wins with long-term strategy and influencing stakeholders with data-backed reasoning. |
| Product Strategy & Execution | Owns initiatives from discovery through launch for a defined area. Coordinates well with Engineering, Design, and stakeholders while managing risks and dependencies. | Translates strategy into clear execution plans, defines success metrics, and adapts priorities based on customer insight, business needs, and results. Consistently delivers quality outcomes. | Shows strong judgment by identifying the right problems, breaking complex initiatives into achievable milestones, and balancing speed with long-term quality. | Shapes the direction of a product area through thoughtful planning, disciplined execution, and continuous iteration. Improves delivery processes, resolves systemic blockers, and drives measurable outcomes. |
| Collaboration & Product Leadership | Builds trusted partnerships with Engineering, Design, Data, Marketing, and other stakeholders. Communicates context clearly and creates alignment around priorities. | Influences decisions through strong communication, structured thinking, and evidence-based recommendations. Facilitates productive discussion, resolves conflict constructively, and builds consensus. | Leads through influence rather than authority. Builds credibility by delivering outcomes, mentoring APMs, and fostering collaborative decisions. | Creates an environment of trust, accountability, and continuous learning. Coaches others, lifts team effectiveness, and is a dependable cross-functional leader. |
SPM — Senior Product Manager
| Competency | Emerging | Developing | Proficient | Strong |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Experimentation & Data Literacy | Defines experimentation plans across multiple initiatives and selects meaningful metrics. Uses data confidently but sometimes seeks alignment on broader strategic implications. | Leads experimentation strategy across a product area, keeping hypotheses, measurement, and experiment quality aligned to objectives. Challenges assumptions with evidence and picks the right method for the question. | Builds a culture of evidence-based decisions by finding high-value learning opportunities, improving practices, and influencing roadmap through data. | A trusted expert in experimentation. Continuously raises the team's analytical maturity, mentors PMs, and drives org-wide learning through rigorous, method-appropriate experimentation. |
| Customer & Growth Insight | Develops a deep understanding of customer journeys and proactively spots patterns influencing conversion, engagement, and retention. | Combines qualitative research, analytics, and experimentation to identify strategic opportunities across multiple product surfaces. | Uses customer insight to shape roadmap priorities, influence investment decisions, and improve long-term customer value. | Anticipates changing behaviors and emerging opportunities before they show up in metrics, and understands the loops that compound — acquisition and activation flywheels, or engagement and retention loops — well enough to shape future direction. |
| Craft & Product Vision | Owns the felt quality of a significant product area and articulates the craft bar clearly to the team. | Shapes a coherent experience across multiple surfaces and pushes craft upstream into how work is scoped. | Defines what "good" feels like across their area and helps others develop their eye; craft becomes a shared standard, not a personal one. | A reference point for product taste — others calibrate their own sense of "great" against this person's judgment. |
| Business Impact & Prioritization | Balances customer needs, engineering effort, and business priorities across multiple initiatives while measuring impact consistently. | Frames investments around ARR, retention, engagement, and ROI. Makes hard prioritization calls supported by evidence and judgment. | Focuses teams on the highest-value opportunities, eliminates low-impact work, and influences cross-functional prioritization. | Shapes business decisions through strong commercial thinking and consistently delivers measurable customer and business outcomes. |
| Product Strategy & Execution | Owns strategy and execution for a significant product area, aligning roadmap decisions with company objectives. | Defines product direction, balances short- and long-term investment, and adapts plans to changing customer and business needs. | Leads complex cross-functional initiatives, resolves ambiguity, and consistently delivers strategic outcomes through disciplined execution. | Shapes the direction of multiple initiatives, improves development practices, and establishes repeatable execution frameworks. |
| Collaboration & Product Leadership | Builds trusted partnerships across Engineering, Design, Data, Marketing, and Leadership while influencing through product expertise. | Creates alignment across teams with clear communication, structured decision-making, and effective stakeholder management. | Mentors PMs, develops collaboration within the team, and drives constructive cross-functional decisions. | A recognized product leader who builds trust, develops people, and lifts the effectiveness of the broader product org. |
GPM — Group Product Manager
| Competency | Emerging | Developing | Proficient | Strong |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Experimentation & Data Literacy | Guides experimentation strategy across multiple product areas, ensuring consistent measurement standards and learning objectives. | Establishes experimentation frameworks that improve decision quality across teams while balancing speed and rigor and fitting method to the question. | Builds organizational capability by coaching leaders, standardizing practices, and influencing strategic investment decisions. | Creates a culture where experimentation is central to product strategy and organizational learning, shaping how the company makes decisions. |
| Customer & Growth Insight | Maintains a holistic understanding of customer behavior across the portfolio and identifies strategic opportunities. | Uses customer insight to influence portfolio priorities, market opportunities, and long-term investment. | Drives organizational understanding of customer needs by integrating research, analytics, and experimentation into strategic planning. | Shapes company-wide product direction through exceptional customer intuition and data-backed market insight. |
| Craft & Product Vision | Holds a consistent quality bar across a portfolio and treats craft as a default, not a nice-to-have. | Raises the craft ceiling across teams and protects it against pressure to ship fast and flat. | Establishes what "great" means at Lumosity as an explicit, shared standard, and builds the rituals — reviews, critique — that sustain it. | Shapes a product culture where craft is a durable competitive advantage and develops the next generation of product taste. |
| Business Impact & Prioritization | Prioritizes investments across multiple product areas to maximize impact while balancing strategic objectives. | Drives portfolio decisions using ARR, LTV, retention, engagement, and ROI as key inputs. | Influences executive stakeholders by clearly articulating investment trade-offs and long-term opportunities. | Shapes organizational investment strategy and consistently delivers transformational business impact. |
| Product Strategy & Execution | Owns strategy across multiple product areas and aligns execution with company vision and business goals. | Builds scalable planning processes, removes organizational barriers, and ensures consistent delivery across teams. | Defines long-term product strategy while adapting to evolving customer, market, and business conditions. | Establishes product management best practices that improve execution, decision-making, and organizational effectiveness. |
| Collaboration & Product Leadership | Leads through influence by aligning senior stakeholders around shared product goals and strategic priorities. | Develops PMs and SPMs through coaching, feedback, and career development. | Builds a collaborative product culture that encourages ownership, innovation, and evidence-based decisions. | A recognized organizational leader who shapes product culture, develops future leaders, and influences company direction. |
Notes. This per-role version is the "rate within role" system of record; the single-ladder matrix is its at-a-glance summary. Edits from the original: Experimentation is debiased at APM and PM (method plurality instead of A/B-and-speed), Customer & Growth Insight names both loop types at the top end rather than conversion alone, and Craft & Product Vision is new — its four-role escalation (own features → product area → multiple surfaces → portfolio and culture) was built from scratch, since the original had no craft ladder. The other three competencies are your originals, lightly tightened.