Beyond Senior PM: Designing a High‑Impact Product Career

As a senior product manager, career progression isn’t always linear. Titles vary, expectations shift, and the path forward can look very different depending on the business, the team, and the stage you’re at.

This roundtable brought together senior product managers who are looking to build high-impact careers. Connect with senior ICs, swap stories, and leave with practical ideas you can use the next day.

Moderated by Milena Court, a Staff Product Manager who’s progressed through some excellent product-led organisations, the session was designed to be open, honest, and shaped by the group.

Using pre-event surveys and a retrospective-style format on the day, the discussion was led by the topics and challenges that matter most to the room.

🔗 Check out the key take aways here

We explored:

• Influence without formal authority, winning buy‑in, and prioritisation trade‑offs when everything looks important.
• Exploring progression paths and shaping your own next step.
• How senior PMs are thinking about scope, growth, and long‑term product impact

The aim was to connect you with others at a similar stage, create space for real conversation, and leave with fresh perspective on your product career — wherever you’re heading next.

Key Takeaways:

1. Progression rarely happens by accident

Moving beyond Senior PM requires intention.

• Don’t assume good work will speak for itself
• Be explicit about what you want next, whether that’s Lead, Staff, Group PM or people management
• Ask early: “What would I need to demonstrate over the next 6-12 months to earn that step?”
• Keep a record of outcomes, not just activity

Top Tip:

Create a simple “impact log” you update monthly with launches, results, experiments, stakeholder wins, and examples of leadership. It makes performance reviews, promotion conversations and interviews much easier.

2. Documentation matters, but advocacy matters just as much

Documenting achievements is important, but not enough on its own.

• Promotions often depend on whether the right people understand your impact
• Having a sponsor or advocate in the business makes a real difference
• You need people in the room who can speak to your value when decisions are being made
• Visibility matters, especially in startups or flatter organisations with less formal career ladders

Top Tip:

Think about who really sees your work. If needed, build more visibility by sharing outcomes regularly, presenting work back cross-functionally, and making sure your manager and senior stakeholders understand the business impact of what you’re driving.

3. Influence is mostly won before the meeting

influence was one of the strongest parts of the evening.

• The best product leaders don’t walk into big meetings cold
• They pre-wire stakeholders, understand motivations, and tailor the message accordingly
• Influence is less about having the best deck and more about knowing what each person needs to hear
• Prototypes, crisp summaries and clear data points often land better than long docs

Top Tip:

Before an important meeting, speak to key stakeholders 1:1 first. Find out what they care about, where they might push back, and what evidence will matter most to them.

4. Strong stakeholder relationships are built through trust, not just polish

• Product people often need to work through tension, disagreement and pressure
• Sometimes trust is built by handling challenge well, not avoiding it
• Understanding someone’s communication style and what is driving their behaviour can completely change the relationship
• Emotional intelligence is a huge part of seniority

Top Tip:

When a stakeholder relationship feels difficult, step back and ask:

• What are they under pressure for?

• What do they care about most?

• How do they like information communicated?

  That shift in approach can often unlock much better collaboration.

5. The “next step” is getting less linear

What comes after Senior PM and whether the old paths still hold up.

• The route beyond Senior PM looks very different depending on company size, maturity and structure
• Some businesses still offer clear ladders, others don’t
• More people are weighing up IC vs management, but the distinction is getting blurrier
• There was a lot of discussion around player-coach roles, strategic IC paths, and hybrid roles emerging around AI

Top Tip:

Instead of planning around job titles alone, plan around the type of scope you want next:

• bigger business problems
• broader domain ownership
• more strategic influence
• people leadership
• deeper specialism

That gives you a more useful filter when assessing future roles.

6. AI is changing the shape of product careers, but not replacing core product judgment

AI is still a hot topic of conversation for Product Managers, not just as a tooling topic but as a career question.

• PMs are already using AI to help with synthesis, structuring reviews, preparing for interviews, and speeding up experimentation
• There was excitement around AI making discovery and testing faster
• But there was also caution around over-relying on tools and losing the depth of thinking that makes product work valuable
• Human judgment still matters most in prioritisation, strategy, trade-off decisions, and knowing what not to build

Top Tip:

Use AI to speed up the process, not replace the thinking.

The PM skillset that seems to matter most now is:

• strong product judgment
• clear prioritisation
• commercial thinking
• evidence-led decision making
• comfort with ambiguity

7. Career sustainability is becoming a bigger question for senior ICs

Is long-term IC growth is becoming harder?

• In some businesses, IC salary ceilings still lag management paths
• Some teams are becoming flatter, with fewer people management layers
• Companies increasingly want PMs who can drop into a domain and create impact quickly
• That can make career development feel more transactional and less predictable

Top Tip:

Senior ICs may need to think more actively about how they increase their value over time, whether through deeper domain expertise, sharper commercial ownership, stronger strategic thinking, or adjacency to areas like AI, design, engineering, or growth.

🔗 Download the summary sheet here

This is was intimate & interactive session with 15 spots. If you'd like to attend future evenings, please reach out to Louise Smith or Ellie Staves, or get in touch at [email protected].