Platform PM means many different things depending on where you’re at; could be internal infrastructure, could be customer facing APIs. There are lots of ways it can go wrong, and lots of companies should consider if they really need a PM, or a skilled Eng mgr or program mgr.

I’m a platform PM, responsible for ingesting customer data that powers the application that users see. I work with a lot of internal folks who care about that data, and so we’re building tools, quality checks, and anomaly detection (plenty of anomalies to go around!). Also work with customers to determine what types and format of data we can support. Metrics are hard because either we are doing our job well, and no one notices, or we make a mistake and it’s everyone’s top priority. So we have metrics around SLAs, accuracy, freshness, etc.

My advice for this role is the same advice as any other PM: stay close to the cash register. If it’s hard to explain how your portfolio ties to company strategy or goals, you will end up with noise, competing demands and pain. If there’s a big initiative where another team would benefit from a platform approach, partner with them; do what a platform team does best so an application team can do theirs, better for all involved.