It was interesting to see how these companies organized their product teams differently. Spotify emphasizes agility, culture, and autonomous teams. They have squads focusing on a specific goal, which is a part of a tribe, and guilds, which are cross-discipline knowledge sharing groups. The squads themselves decide their roadmap and align their roadmap with tribe goals, having total control over their workflow. The PM sits within a squad and can be part of TPD (tech, product, design) trios. They hold responsibility since they decide the product roadmap.
Spotify Organization
Airbnb operates on a functional, design-led structure, where teams align under a shared long-term vision, using interactive prototypes to review ideas directly with leadership. Central leadership decides what is green lit on a single company roadmap before teams build toward synchronized seasonal releases. PMs partner with Design Leads on approved initiatives, merging product management with marketing rather than managing sprint backlogs. The PMs hold less authority over roadmap creation, focusing instead on business viability, narrative framing, and go-to-market packaging.
Holocracy
For Zappos and their holocratic approach, there aren’t distinct roles. Not one person is the PM, but there are circles which are responsible for a specific function. This encourages transparency and distributes decision making authority across roles rather than a traditional chain of command. In a sense, everyone is responsible because they all do many things for this circle. I would want to work under Spotify, since there is still structure, but more independent freedom. I don’t see myself as someone who can just simply be told what to do, or generate with little direction. I see that PM is a braod role, but for me Spotify is the best in between structure and freedom and is the environment I see myself in as someone entering the workforce.
images from https://www.functionly.com/orginometry/real-org-charts/spotify-org-structure and https://micropreneur.life/i-unknowingly-built-a-holacratic-hierarchy-less-business-heres-why/
