Designing Your Career Roadmap (Not Just Your Next Job)

Most PMs think about their careers in terms of job titles: Associate, PM, Senior PM, Lead PM, Director. But your career isn't a ladder—it's a series of bets. And the best PMs treat those bets like a roadmap, not a checklist.

That means:

• Knowing where you want to go (your career vision)
• Understanding your differentiators (your unfair advantage)
• Sequencing the right roles, teams, and mentors to get you there

You don't have to have all the answers, but you do need a direction. Otherwise, you'll optimize for speed over trajectory.

Map Your Long-Term Thematic Arcs

Start by identifying what you want more of in your career. These are the themes that should show up again and again across every opportunity:

Most people chase roles, not themes. But themes make your roadmap resilient. They let you pivot across companies, verticals, and even life stages—without losing momentum.

Think of themes as your North Star. They help you filter opportunities not just by title or company, but by fit—do they get you closer to what matters most?

Be Intentional and Choose Career Arcs, Not Just Roles

If themes are your North Star, arcs are your chapters.

• Themes = the things you want more of across your whole career.
• Arcs = the chapter you’re in right now, when one theme becomes the dominant driver.

Instead of asking “what’s next?”, ask: “What arc am I in?” Some example arcs:

• From IC to people manager
• From generalist to specialist
• From execution to strategy
• From builder to founder

Arcs have tension, stakes, and growth. They also have trade-offs. Knowing your arc helps you say no to roles that look shiny but pull you off-course.

Example Arcs from My Career

My first arc was about mastery. At Zynga, I sharpened fundamentals in product rigor and excellence. Then I experimented in startups, learned new domains, and proved I could apply product principles across industries. The trade-off was breadth over depth: stepping outside comfort zones to round out my skills.

My next arc was about autonomy. At Jam City, I wanted to lead and build a team — not just execute a roadmap, but craft it. Autonomy meant owning trade-offs, aligning partners, and being accountable for outcomes at scale. It was also the shift from player of the game to builder of people.

Now I’m in my impact arc. Writing this blog, mentoring others, and codifying what I’ve learned are ways to multiply growth beyond myself. Impact is about scale — creating clarity and frameworks others can carry forward. The trade-off is turning down shiny opportunities for myself to amplify what others can achieve.

Each arc built on the last. And each one came with its own learning curve, identity shift, and set of questions.

Understand Your Core Product Mode

In games, PMs often fall into one of four core modes. Recognizing yours helps you define your strengths, where you thrive, and how to grow:

Your mode isn’t the whole story — the stage of the product you’re working on matters too:

The distinction matters:

• Mode is about you — the style of PM you naturally gravitate toward and the muscles you’ve developed.
• Lifecycle is about the game — whether it’s new, live, mature or in need of a sunset.

Together your Core PM Mode & Product life cycle, create fit and growth opportunities:

• A Builder PM shines in the New Game stage, shaping systems from zero-to-one.
• A LiveOps PM thrives in Live Games, driving cadence, events, and monetization at scale.
• In Mature stages, Growth and LiveOps PMs stretch into efficiency and longevity.
• In Sunset, PMs focus less on expansion and more on gracefully managing long-tail revenue and player transitions.

Not every product goes through a formal turnaround, but many Mature or late-stage games will hit a point of decline. That’s where the Turnaround PM steps in — diagnosing problems and making bold bets to reignite growth.

For example, in my own career:

• At Zynga and Jam City, I leaned into my Builder and LiveOps PM modes, working on new systems and scaling multi-million–dollar live puzzle games.
• At Scopely, I shifted into Turnaround PM mode, where the challenge wasn’t just optimization but diagnosing decline, rebuilding systems, and reigniting growth under pressure.

How to Use This Framework

This isn’t just my story — it’s a framework you can use to design your own career arc. Try this exercise:

1. Name your arc
2. Identify your core mode — Builder, Growth, LiveOps, or Turnaround.
3. Locate your product’s lifecycle stage — New, Live, Mature, or Sunset.
4. Layer the three — Ask: Does my arc align with my mode and my product stage? Or am I in a stretch role?

Define Your Unfair Advantage

Just like products have moats, PMs have differentiators. These might be:

• Deep domain knowledge (e.g. midcore/casual games, fintech…etc)
• Strong cross-functional influence
• Exceptional taste or user empathy
• Analytical firepower

Knowing your unfair advantage helps you:

• Pick teams where you’ll thrive
• Accelerate faster
• Communicate your value with clarity

If you're not sure what yours is, ask trusted peers or managers. Or reflect on where you get pulled into projects—and why.

Your unfair advantage doesn’t mean you’re boxed in. It’s your launchpad—the thing that gets you in the door, earns trust, and gives you leverage as you grow.

🎯 Remember: You are the steward of your own career. You must define what success looks like for you before others can support or guide you. Clarity creates momentum.

Use Each Role as a Learning Bet

Every role should give you something: scope, mentorship, a new skill, a challenge. Be explicit about what you’re hoping to learn, and check in every 3–6 months.

The best PMs don't just chase scope—they design learning arcs that compound. If a role doesn’t give you energy, insight, or leverage—it’s a detour, not a step forward.

How Arcs, Modes, and Lifecycle Work Together

These are three different lenses you can use to understand your career:

• Your arc tells you the kind of growth you’re chasing in this season
• Your mode reflects your natural operating style
• The product lifecycle stage shows the environment you’re in

Think of them as layers that stack. Your arc is the narrative over time, your mode is the style you bring into any role, and the lifecycle is the context around you.

When you look at them together, you can see why a role feels energizing or draining. For me:

• In my mastery arc, I operated as a Builder/LiveOps PM on new and live puzzle games at Zynga and Jam City.
• In my autonomy arc, I grew into product leadership on scaled live games, accountable for outcomes at scale and leading a variety of teams.
• In my current impact arc, I’m in Turnaround mode on a mature game at Scopely — the challenge is diagnosing issues, realigning a team, and reigniting growth under pressure.

Your Roadmap Will Evolve—That’s the Point

You don’t need to know the full 10-year plan. Just like we don’t build a product all at once, you only need clarity on your next arc—and the values guiding it.

Focus on what you want more of today and in the next 1–2 years. That’s enough to define a meaningful direction.

Then, build in regular check-ins with yourself—just like a quarterly roadmap review:

• What’s energizing you right now?
• Are you still learning what you hoped to?
• Is your arc still aligned with where you want to grow?

Careers are built through iteration, not certainty. The more you reflect, the better your next move gets.

Call to Action

Take 15 minutes this week to sketch your own arc. Write down your mode, your product stage, and your arc. Then ask: Am I where I want to be, or is it time to pivot. Don’t just read this — sketch your roadmap today. The clarity you create now will compound for years

Want to go deeper? I’ll be writing more about stakeholder alignment, influence, and career strategy soon—subscribe to stay in the loop.