How To Become A Commercial Product Manager: What It Is and Career Path

What is a commercial product manager and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

3 min read

Quoted expert

Sachin Tuli

Commercial product managers utilize their high-level customer service and product development skills to help companies maximize their potential and profitability. The main duty of a commercial product manager is to identify consumers' needs and wants, and then create product plans to help businesses meet the demand.

Other duties of a commercial product manager include monitoring web analytics reports, formalizing portfolio management practices, participating in product development meetings, and providing recommendations to improve sales. They work closely with the marketing and sales teams of their company, often serving as the main point person for information regarding current customer demands.

Most commercial product managers have bachelor's degrees in business, marketing, and management. Those wishing to increase their earning potential and chances of job placement, a master's degree can be a great advantage. Furthermore, years of industry experience are needed to qualify for the role, ideally within the same industry. Since the role of a commercial product manager is vital to optimizing profitability, the average salary for this position is $96,000 per year.

What's a day at work look like for a commercial product manager?

Sachin Tuli

Director, International Business Major, Wisconsin School of Business, University of Wisconsin-Madison

The pandemic accelerated ongoing shifts with work-from-anywhere and use of remote meeting technologies. With mass adoption at all levels, these trends are likely to persist to some degree across fields and industries. There will likely be less travel for a number of years, but concurrently we may see more cross-team and cross-national collaboration and coordination. From an international business perspective, firms do plan to continue their globalization efforts and we know that graduates themselves increasingly seek potential global opportunities and mobility when choosing which organizations to work for.

ScoreCommercial Product ManagerUS Average

Salary

7.8

Avg. Salary $106,412

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

7.5

Growth rate 10%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

3.1

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.23%

Asian 8.15%

Black or African American 3.04%

Hispanic or Latino 8.67%

Unknown 5.32%

White 74.58%

Gender

female 29.95%

male 70.05%

Age - 38

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 38

Stress level

7.5

Stress level is high

7.1 - high

Complexity level

9.0

Complexity level is advanced

7 - challenging

Work life balance

3.5

Work life balance is poor

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a commercial product manager

Explore commercial product manager education requirements

Most common commercial product manager degrees

Bachelor's

80.3 %

Master's

12.6 %

Associate

6.6 %

Start to develop specific commercial product manager skills

Skills	Percentages
Treasury	14.90%
Product Line	11.90%
Product Development	7.85%
Product Strategy	6.73%
Product Roadmap	5.31%

Complete relevant commercial product manager training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 1-3 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New commercial product managers learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as a commercial product manager based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real commercial product manager resumes.

Research commercial product manager duties and responsibilities

Lead cross-functional team in pioneering the application/game download ecosystem with the implementation of Java games and generating significant new revenue stream.
Utilize SQL to support data-driven analysis and decision processes to inform project prioritization, assess feature effectiveness, and troubleshoot issues.
Provide statistical analysis and technical responses to customer RFQ.

Apply for commercial product manager jobs

Now it's time to start searching for a commercial product manager job. Consider the tips below for a successful job search:

Browse job boards for relevant postings
Consult your professional network
Reach out to companies you're interested in working for directly
Watch out for job scams

How do commercial product managers rate their job?

-/5

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Commercial product manager reviews

A zippia user wrote a review on Aug 2023

Pros

Solve tough problems, work on agile teams, outlet for creativity,

Cons

high expectations, constantly evolving technology, broad range of topics to learn (product management specifics, industry, technology, software development methods

A zippia user wrote a review on Jun 2020