Assuming we’re at a mid to large sized tech company, where these people are managers of others and do not directly run a product, what do these roles do day to day?

As someone who’s been an IC their whole career I’ve never really understood what that looks like.

I can tell that these people are extremely busy, and at the higher end even need people to schedule their calendars.

But because I haven’t made it there (yet!) its hard to understand what these folks are doing behind the scenes, besides having 1:1s with their reports.

It appears that product features come from the bottom up almost always (at least at my current and previous companies), and PMs across orgs reach out and work with each other directly. So it doesn’t seem related to that.

I hear “strategy” is a part of that, but I’m not really clear how that translates into daily activities.

I’m sure someone will come in with a snarky comment about how middle management isn’t necessary, but let’s assume in this case these are people who are great at their jobs, and delivering value.