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Mentor
I tend to think about it as 2 different career paths within the disciple. Individual contributors/mentors and managers/mentors. I add mentor to each career path because I won't promote you if you aren't giving back to junior members of the team.
On the individual side you start as a product analyst, associate product manager, product manager, and senior product manager. Once you've reached this it is very possible for you to stall and never go higher. This is also where you either branch into management and grow your organization. This is where a group/director, VP/head of product management, CPO, etc. exist. For those choosing to not manage people they get into principal or distinguished PM roles. All these words and terms are subject to organization and size.
In terms of skill it really depends on a lot of factors, but more senior PMs tend to be able to manage their own roadmaps, handle more business channels, and balance more developer concurrency.
Please let me know if I answered your question. Happy to expand on anything that isn't clear.
Thanks for the insight
I came from a less defined org than the CPO above, his(er) breakdown is awesome, however to give you some perspective from the other side of the coin. I worked at a startup before Accenture and product managers had 1 title regardless of seniority. Product manager. In general they were the CEO’s of a product line and held tremendous, almost dictatorial power over their own product, most of our PM’s reported up to the Chief Revenue Officer. Only the tech specific ones reported up to the CTO. In terms of growth, it meant additional product lines or additional teams or moving to a core product, opening room for a more junior product manager to cut their teeth on a smaller revenue generating product. It also meant a corresponding increase in salary. For the most part it was a terminal position, most people wanted to stay there, for those who wanted to move up, they either left to become CRO/CPO/COO at other startups or they started product managing greenfield and moonshot projects where the chances of failure were much much higher vs a core product, areas where their skill can directly translate to success or failure.
Thanks for sharing, this is an interesting take