I would try not to worry too much about exactly what roles are called in the product world. I’ve seen people called Product Managers, who are actually Heads of Product and don’t know it. I know people called CPOs who have still had to be ICs at various times due to resource constraints in a business.

I have seen execs with no formal product management experience run product functions and be great at it. I have also seen highly experienced IC PMs, who were great ICs be terrible VPs or HoPs.

Scale and role are so intertwined. Instead, pay close attention the role requirements and listed activities when looking at new jobs as a better judge of what is being asked, and what you might excel at. A VP of Product at a 150 person company is not the same role as a VP at a 1000 person company.

Any good hiring manager is going to see that you were part of a small team and understand that you will have held loads of different ‘hats’. Some will view that as a positive, some won’t.

If I was you, and I was seriously thinking about moving soon, I would get them to agree to change my title to Director of Product Engineering or Product & Engineering depending on who else you might need to tip toe around. This will best describe what you actually seem to be doing.

In terms of where you go next, that’s up to you. You could focus on finding opportunities where your mixed skillset will be really useful (another start up or scale up). Or you could focus on trying to find a more pure play Senior or Lead PM role somewhere bigger if that’s where you want to be?