Spotify has squads – small, interdisciplinary teams that are responsible for a specific feature end-to-end – that join up into larger tribes. Each interdisciplinary squad has a Product Leader with significant authority, and the squad has autonomy over how to build the product.
Zappos has circles that focus on roles instead of job titles, and the person working on the roles associated with product building decides what gets built. Although there is no typical “Product Manager” title, a person with product related roles sits in each circle, and this person can have substantial authority within their circle, but this authority comes from their roles instead of their title.
At Airbnb, design has a big say and top leadership creates roadmaps and decides what to build, which means that product managers have less authority and control over products. Product managers sit in a product marketing organization.
I would prefer to work in the Spotify organization because I like how the product manager gets to work directly with engineers and designers on an interdisciplinary team, increasing direct and three-way collaboration. When I am building a product or focusing on one specific feature, I like to take ownership, and I appreciate how Spotify gives the most autonomy to the PM compared to the other two organization structures. The product manager I talked to for my cold interview mentioned that she also works in a team that functions like a small start up and she appreciates how collaborative the team is and the fact that they are fully immersed with and get to control a specific feature, supporting the Spotify model. I am curious to learn how different squads maintain autonomy while working together to form a cohesive and product-aligned tribe.
