What kind of product manager am I?

I've been a product manager for over a year now. I'd like to think I've learned a lot along the way. I want to document that journey to date and into the future.

What kind of product manager am I?

I have a monthly 1-on-1 with my boss, the head of product at Shopify. This last one was particularly good. He described two types of product managers: the Operational PM, and the Mercenary PM.

The Operational PM is meticulous and detail-oriented. I've started reading Inspired: How to Create Products People Love and in it, the author tries to separate the Product Manager from the Product Marketing and Project Management roles. At Shopify, there's a bit of all of that in being a PM.

A Mercenary PM, though, is a problem solver. They're the type of person that can really tackle a problem, break it down, and build it back together again.

These two types are by no means exclusive. The skills for one are useful for the other and a product manager is going to have a mix of all these skills. They're just driven in different ways.

I consider myself more of the mercenary type. I thrive on the problem solving — especially from a design perspective. I really enjoy having all the pieces of the puzzle in my head and working to fit them all together.

When I was at Yahoo!, I never saw the PMs. They seemed very removed from the design and development team. At Shopify, I sit with design and development. I want to be in those conversations. I want to make sure the best decisions are being made at all levels because every piece is part of making a fantastic product with a great experience.

Where do you sit? In Crossing the Developer-Designer-PM Chasm , that very question is raised. A good PM, in my opinion, is in the thick of it, not on the fringe. It's where they need to be to build the knowledge to make good product decisions.