In my experience, there is no golden ratio or right answer to this question. Many factors determine what the "right" ratio is depending on the industry, org structure, size of the company, and maturity of the company. I have seen PM to Eng ratios from 1PM to 3 engineering all the way up to 1PM for every 20 engineers.
Given you are the first PM you are likely part of a start up and if you are within the tech industry 1 PM to 8 Engineers feels reasonable as you get started and need to build and scale your platform. I suggest getting another PM in the mix as a next step to get your ratio down to 1:4 so you can have two squads rapidly develop, iterate, and solve user problems with more ideas and concepts across experiences. Typically as you start and scale is important having a tighter ratio allows multiple PMs to do rapid problem-solving and development.
That is the ratio I have typically seen within the tech sector (1 PM to 4-5 Eng) but it really depends on the product and where your company is in its journey. The more technical and later stage of the company the ratio is lower (1 to 7-10), the earlier and more customer-experience oriented your company is the ratio is tighter (1 to 4ish)
FAQs
A general rule of thumb is 1 product manager for every 5-10 engineers. 1:5 - This is common in startups or small teams where the product manager may need to be in the details. 1:10 - As the team and company grows, a product manager may manage larger engineering teams.
What is the ideal PM to Eng ratio? ›
However, a common rule of thumb is to aim for a ratio of 1 product manager to 8-10 engineers. This ratio provides enough product management oversight and guidance to the engineering team while allowing engineers to have enough autonomy and ownership over their work.
What is the ratio of product manager to designer? ›
What Is the Ideal Ratio for Product Management, UX, and Engineering? Based on the details floating around on the internet, the most common recommendations for a ratio range from 1:1:5–1:1:10 (PM:UX:Eng).
What is the ratio of po to developer? ›
The optimal product manager to developer ratio: 1 to 7
It is usually recommended that a Product Manager should be able to work closely with a team of developers and ensure effective communication. A general rule of thumb could be that a Product Manager should be able to supervise around 4-10 developers.
How many devs per PM? ›
Ideal ratio is 1 PM to <10 engineers. Depends on the work and the maturity.. so there is no exact optimal ratio. As a PM I once ran 5 teams of 5-6 people each, but it was my product so I separated the teams and had them working on diff things.
What is the best CM to PM ratio? ›
RE: CM/PM Ratio
Best Practice is 6:1. For every 6 PMs conducted (Lube, Inspection, etc.) to (1) CM.
What is the ideal CM PM ratio? ›
The assumption is that, if the ratio is greater than 6:1 you are performing the PM too often; if the ratio is less than 6:1, you are not performing it often enough.
What makes a 1% product manager? ›
Key Takeaways:
Exceptional product managers understand the cultural context and tailor solutions to meet local market needs. Core traits such as intellectual curiosity, analytical skills, and customer empathy distinguish top-tier product managers.
Do product managers get paid more than product designers? ›
In general, product managers tend to have higher average salaries compared to product designers, given their strategic and business-oriented roles. However, compensation can differ based on various factors and should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.
How much do product managers make vs product owners? ›
Average: As per August 2021 research data from Glassdoor, the average annual compensation for a Product Manager in the United States is around $111,775, and that of a Product Owner is $87,637.
The Golden Ratio:
To hit the ideal ratio, every Scrum team "should" include one Product Owner [PO], One Scrum Master [SM], and 3-9 "developers". This means a team should have anywhere from 5-11 people on it. No more than eleven.
What is the average ratio of designers to developers? ›
The industry average for designer to developer ratio is between 1:10 and 1:20. Some of the biggest tech companies operate with much lower ratios between 1:5 and 1:8. Many factors influence the designer to developer ratio, and there is no secret formula early-stage startups can apply.
How many product owners per developer? ›
As the name Product Owner suggests, you need one Product Owner for each Product (and one Product Backlog). If your Product is developed by multiple development teams, it can happen that one person cannot do this job for all the teams at once.
What is a good QA to DEV ratio? ›
The ideal tester-to-developer ratio is not a one-size-fits-all figure. It varies depending on the project's complexity, scope, team size, and the specific requirements of the software being developed. Commonly seen ratios range from 1:1 in highly complex projects to 1:3 in more straightforward developments.
What is the ratio of developer to Project Manager? ›
It is not common to have more PMs than developers. The common consensus is that a good ratio between PMs and developers is from 1:6 to 1:10, which means 1 PM for any where from 6 to 10 developers. (You can easily google "good ratio between PMs vs developers" to find out.)
What is the ideal product team size? ›
Size the team
The minimum size for a product team is 3 with one product manager and two engineers and on the higher end, every individual contributing product manager and designer should generally be linked up with 10–12 engineers/developers for a meaningful level of work.
What is the PM to breakdown ratio? ›
What is the PM to breakdown ratio? While there's no perfect ratio of preventive to reactive maintenance, experts recommend adopting an 80/20 approach (based loosely on the Pareto Principle), where 80% of maintenance activities focus on proactive work and the remaining 20% on reactive work.
What is the preventive corrective maintenance ratio? ›
You might have heard of the 6:1 rule. The gist of this rule is that for every six preventive maintenance tasks you do, you should find one corrective task. If you end up doing more PMs for each corrective task, you're doing too much PM. If you have more corrective tasks, you're doing too little.
What is designer to engineer ratio? ›
The industry average for designer to developer ratio is between 1:10 and 1:20. Some of the biggest tech companies operate with much lower ratios between 1:5 and 1:8. Many factors influence the designer to developer ratio, and there is no secret formula early-stage startups can apply.
What is a maintenance ratio? ›
A measure of the total maintenance manpower burden required to maintain an item. It is expressed as the cumulative number of labor hours of maintenance expended in direct labor during a given period of the life units divided by the cumulative number of end item life units during the same period.
