Episode Summary: Thriving as a Platform Product Manager

Podcast: Product Thinking
Host: Melissa Perri
Episode: 244
Date: September 12, 2025

Main Theme & Purpose

This episode of Product Thinking, featuring Melissa Perri, centers on the transition from end user to platform product management. Melissa fields a listener’s question in her “Dear Melissa” segment, diving deep into what it means to thrive as a platform product manager (PM), how the role differs from traditional customer-facing product management, and what skills and mindsets are essential for success in this increasingly competitive and critical area.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Transitioning to Platform Product Management

[01:18]

• Listener asks for advice on moving from end user/feature product management to a backend, internal-facing platform PM role.

• Melissa emphasizes that the main users shift from external customers to “internal customers”—the engineers, DevOps, and infrastructure teams who depend on the platform.

  "What you're doing is worrying still about the user experience, but the user experience from a workflow perspective of the people around you."
  —Melissa Perri, [02:42]

2. Learning the Workflows and Technical Context

[02:50]

• Importance of immersing oneself in the daily lives and workflows of internal developer users.

• Suggested activities:

  • Sit with developers to understand architecture and deployment.
  • Study platform anatomy: APIs, documentation, deployment pipelines, infrastructural diagrams.
  • Grasp technical concepts: scalability, load management, DevOps processes.

  "Get your architectural diagrams, get your development pipeline diagrams. Sometimes they live in programs, sometimes they live out in Google Docs. Find out where all that lives and study up on that..."
  —Melissa Perri, [03:39]

3. Shifting the Mindset: From Feature to Infrastructure

[04:30]

• As a platform PM, you are now responsible for scaling the “engine” of the company, ensuring the foundation for future growth.

• Become proactive in thinking about scalability, reliability, and how the backend supports broader business goals.

  "You are doing the engine of the car. Nobody really looks at the engine unless you're like a car guy...but you need to make sure it's good so that it scales."
  —Melissa Perri, [04:45]

4. Strategic Perspective & Alignment

[05:10]

• Role requires regular collaboration with commercial-facing squads and ensuring platform efforts directly support business strategy and growth trajectory.

• The platform roadmap must both enable and anticipate the customer-facing teams’ needs.

• Forward-thinking: Suggest new technologies (e.g., AI, API improvements) to empower the business, but always with commercial objectives in mind.

  "When you're thinking about a platform roadmap, you do have your own strategy, but it always follows a commercial facing strategy."
  —Melissa Perri, [05:55]

5. Pitfalls and Best Practices

[07:15]

• Common platform PM failures: Building in isolation, neglecting collaboration with business and product peers, leading to unused or ineffective platforms.

• Platform PMs must be “high collaborators,” bridging technical solutions and business needs.

  "I've seen people...build a whole platform and never involve anybody else on the commercial side...you spend millions...and nobody uses it and it breaks."
  —Melissa Perri, [07:23]

• Platform PMs often do not work with UX designers or speak directly to end customers but must always translate business goals to backend realities.

6. Career Perspective and Demand

[08:30]

• There is a significant skill gap and increasing demand for effective platform product managers.

• Those who excel in these roles will be highly valued as more companies invest in platform growth.

  "It is one of the biggest skill gaps I see. So you are setting yourself up right now to be in high demand soon."
  —Melissa Perri, [08:46]

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• User Experience Shift:
  "The user experience from a workflow perspective of the people around you."
  —Melissa Perri, [02:43]

• On Platform as Infrastructure:
  "You are doing the engine of the car. Nobody really looks at the engine unless you're a car guy...but you need to make sure it's good so that it scales."
  —Melissa Perri, [04:45]

• On the Platform Roadmap:
  "You do have your own strategy, but it always follows a commercial facing strategy."
  —Melissa Perri, [05:55]

• On Collaboration:
  "You are the voice of the business in the technical side and making sure that you can enable the sales, you could still enable the things to be built on that side."
  —Melissa Perri, [07:37]

• On Career Opportunity:
  "We need a lot better platform product managers out there...you are setting yourself up right now to be in high demand soon."
  —Melissa Perri, [08:46]

Timestamps for Key Segments

• [01:18] Listener's question: Transitioning to platform product management
• [02:20] Defining internal users and internal user experience
• [03:00] Practical steps to learn workflows and technical context
• [04:30] Mindset shift: Infrastructure focus and scalability
• [05:10] Collaborating with other PMs and aligning strategy
• [07:15] Risks of isolation; platform PM best practices
• [08:30] Industry demand and closing thoughts

Style & Tone

Melissa Perri’s approach is empathetic, encouraging, and pragmatic—recognizing both the challenges and opportunities in platform product management. She stresses learning through collaboration, strategic alignment, and embracing the technical complexities that distinguish this role from more traditional, customer-facing product management.

For Listeners New and Experienced

Whether you’re contemplating a move to platform PM or already in the trenches, this episode paints a clear, actionable picture of what day-to-day success looks like, common pitfalls, and how to grow your skills to become indispensable in a fast-evolving field.