When is it appropriate or feasible to have multiple Product Managers at different levels (PM, SPM, PPM) within a team/squad, without altering the size of the engineering team?

There are only particular instances when, in my experience, it can make sense to have multiple product managers within a team. If your engineering structure is a squad/pod model where there is a dedicated set of engineers along on a core mission with clear ownership, I would most typically have 1 dedicated PM to this team.

Instances where you could consider adding a second PM include:

• Wanting to train another person in a specific area so there is an opportunity for future transition. The addition of the 2nd PM would be temporary and often someone more junior to the existing PM working on the team

• Where there is a very large team and a Principal or very Senior PM working with them, it's a great opportunity to upskill an Associate PM or early career PM. They can own specific features or projects within the broader scope of what the team is doing, get mentorship from the PM and provide the team with more help. Typically this would also be a temporary situation.

• A similar situation is where you have 1 PM working across two teams that are working on related missions - for example a search experience team and a search infrastructure team OR an Android app team and iOS app team. In these cases, a second PM can help with many of the more execution-related streams of work, but ensure there is still strong coordination and a single strategy at work.

• There is a brand new project or feature that the team will be working on that is very different from what they've done so far. A second PM with expertise in this type of work, more familiarity with the customer problem, business need, or other engineering teams involved could be a good choice to work with the team on this specific project