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Understand more about the Product Owner career path
How can I become a Product Owner
- The most common career steps to get to Product Owner are Product Manager, Release Train Engineer and Adjunct Professor based on actual career paths reported to Jobtrees.
- Product Manager, the most common step before Product Owner, is a more senior role which is common to see in career paths. This is a natural and common career progression as titles aren't synonymous across companies so a more senior title doesn't always mean higher pay and larger scope. For Product Owner, this is an indication that you should focus more on the scope of the role than the specific title when thinking about building a path to Product Owner.
- While Product Manager is the most common, there is no specific role leading to Product Owner that is an overwhelmingly common path.
- Another characteristic of the Product Owner career path is that experience within the same job family as this role isn't common and as a result likely not necessary.
- This shows there are many potential paths to becoming a Product Owner so focusing on translatable skills is likely more important than a specific role.
- While Product Manager is from the same job family, Product as Product Owner, you don't necessarily need direct experience in this discipline show by Release Train Engineer also leading to Product Owner.
What should I know about the Product Owner career path
- The most common degrees or certifications earned by Jobtrees users on the path to become Product Owner are Master Of Science (m.sc.) In Computer Information Systems, Master Of Business Administration (mba), and Master Degree In Industrial Design. There may be other specific certification requirements to land a job with this role, so please make sure to check local regulations as well.
- Career paths aren't linear with people often returning to a prior role which is what you see with Product Manager being the most common role to and from Product Owner. This is common when people move companies where the title is the same as a past one but the scope may be different but also is commonly driven by them choosing to return to a function they fit well with.
- Product Owner is part of the Product job family which has a limited number of unique role types (51) within that discipline. Choosing to pursue a role within this family likely will mean that you will need to look outside of your discipline to find new roles and so should focus on related skills as part of that search.
- Our data is limited for this role so it's possible there are other common career paths not highlighted here for Product Owner.