Explaining the PM Hiring Trend of prioritizing candidates with domain expertise
👀 If you’re noticing a hiring trend toward those with Domain Expertise over just product fundamentals, you’re not alone.
Over the last few years, I’ve interviewed on both sides of the PM — the hiring side and the candidate side, and have chatted with dozens of hiring managers and product experts. One of the most interesting themes I’ve explored is the prominence of hiring for SME knowledge or experience.
So what gives — what’s happening? Is domain expertise truly being valued more than general product knowledge and fundamentals?
😥 So what’s happening?
I interviewed over 50 industry professionals in product management in the current tech hiring market — and it’s quite interesting what I’ve discovered:
In general, it depends on the industry. The more gate-kept an industry is, the more SME matters. For example, for a tech company in the mining or gaming industry, candidates with prior experience in those respective fields will be prioritized. A candidate PM with SME experience > a candidate PM without SME experience.
In the space of AI, domain expertise matters, depending on the scope of the PM role that’s being filled. If the product is entirely AI-based, then yes, SME will be prioritized. If the product is only partially focused on AI, then it may matter less.
Product experience still matters — but since many candidates now boast relative product experience (in either PM or some adjacent role), strong product experience for most non-graduate PM job openings is now expected. That’s the minimum bar.
Other specific product fields will also prioritize SME, but it depends on the company. This includes fields like search, e-commerce, payments, or autonomous vehicles.
Startups are all over the place. Some startups will care, some won’t as long as the candidate is a proven PM with a strong track record. It’s best to just ask the hiring managers what they’re looking for in a strong candidate.
If a PM job opening is a new graduate role or for a product in an industry that is less gate-kept (think: B2B SaaS or health tech), then SME may be prioritized less — but again, research the company that’s hiring and what they’re looking for.
🤔 Why is this happening?
To put it bluntly: the product management role is changing.
Doing product has always evolved. Back when Marty Cagan released Inspired, which highlighted the importance of a close relationship between the PM, the designer, and the engineers within proximity, it wasn’t just about the best practices of a product team. It also emphasized a clear focus on product discovery before prioritizing execution, and product management was more well-defined. Additionally, fewer people understood how PM worked compared to today.
📈 Two key changes continue manifesting:
A) The PM role (and its skill set) is becoming more ubiquitous across tech. I term it ‘PM Ubiquity.’
Marty Cagan’s Inspired was first published in 2008, and I bet most of us had no idea what a product manager even was. Even back in 2018 — when I discovered product and developed a desire to become a PM — most of my peers in tech only knew of the role but not much about what it entailed. Some who worked more closely with PMs knew, but some others — even those in adjacent roles or functions like consulting, business analysis, or project management — weren’t as knowledgeable. Now, even peers who are several degrees away know of the PM role; with more ubiquity comes greater adoption of PM skills among the general crowd of tech workers.
This means that other functions like business analysts, managers, directors, community builders, technical leads, and others are now adopting (or turning their existing skill sets) ‘PM-esque’ skills, thus diluting the market that once valued PM fundamentals. Don’t get me wrong — PM fundamentals are still important — but the market continues to dilute itself with everyone wanting to become a PM or put a label on their PM skill set. So what differentiates a good PM hire from a bad PM hire if the market continues diluting with wider PM adoption? One way would be domain expertise, explaining why subject expertise is becoming more important in the PM hiring process.
B) Some PM tasks are being automated by AI.
Yes, Marty Cagan’s ideas are timeless and can still be applied today. But now, organizations across the globe are changing, especially thanks to the onset of AI in many of their daily operations. Some components of a typical PM’s day are being automated, while other areas are still reliant on a human brain.
Think about it: If startups and modern tech companies are leveraging AI agents to perform mundane PM tasks like breaking epics down into user stories, collecting market research, or reminding stakeholders of dependencies, then that changes how PMs must perform on a day-to-day basis. PMs have to pivot and perform more strategic or experience-based tasks, and to increase the chance of success, domain expertise is needed.
🧑💻 How to prepare for an evolving job market as a PM
Sit down and ask yourself: What type of role am I looking for next? Do I have any SME to leverage for my job search, and if I don’t, should I develop some first before making the jump?
This will greatly affect how you approach your employment search — and how you apply your existing PM and SME combination.
If you’re someone just starting or trying to break into PM and are looking for an entry-level role to learn the fundamentals, you want to target places that hire generalists, unless you see an opening that would appreciate someone with specific domain experience.
If you already carry forward years of specific domain expertise from a particular industry in your past, you ideally want to leverage that as much as you can — especially if you’re still trying to get your foot into the ‘PM door.’ For example, if you used to be a software engineer in the autonomous vehicle space, a PM hiring manager may already value your industry experience over any lack of PM experience; the latter could be developed over time.
🤖 The future
Because of the expanding adoption of AI agents and the ever-growing impact of PM ubiquity, I have a strong prediction on how the PM hiring market will evolve in the short term (who knows what will happen in the long term).
It’s true that many companies — especially startups — are trying to grow leaner by relying more on agents rather than people, and PMs are part of that equation. So ask yourself: what type of PM will win the near-future job market, and what skills will they have to grow revenue for their business?
I predict that there will be 2 types of product managers that will branch out from the diluted crowd of candidates and become the biggest stars in the future that hiring managers will prioritize:
The exceptional business PM with a proven track record of making money.
The tech-savvy AI PM who can build or test any PoC (proof of concept) on their own.
Let’s expand on these ideas.
The exceptional business PM is one who is so good at sales or winning customers to grow revenue that they can beat out any AI agent and mesh well with sales teams to win contracts or accelerate cash flow. They’ll take on the burden themselves to optimize inbound or outbound sales and marketing, or work so well with their respective sales or marketing teams that their impact on revenue is significant. They’re still worth the hire, especially if a startup is looking for a PM who can wear many hats (and often wear the hat of a strong salesperson too).
The tech-savvy AI PM is someone who knows how to code or, at the very least, knows how to leverage AI tools (including technical ones) to build proof of concepts and MVPs (minimal viable products), test out ideas, or optimize other business processes to save or earn more money. They’ll probably be expected to work closely with the engineers (or wear the engineer hat themselves in a lean environment) to test ideas, build and ship quickly, and beat out other PMs who move more slowly in the AI wave. This can also allow their businesses to move faster, become more efficient, and win with faster market adoption.
Let me know what you think — will these two specific PM roles conquer 90% of the future PM job market?
😎 About Me
My name is Kasey — I’m a Sr. PM with a track record of building and shipping 0 to 1, and have also worked in big tech. I’ve also published 2 fiction books and built a PM community called PM Hive.
Subscribe to the PM Hive blog! And check my site to learn more about me.