What should be a career plan for someone who likes to make consumer software products?

The tech industry is evolving continuously. New opportunities or job titles/responsibilities open every few years. In addition, responsibilities for the same job title differ from company to company. In one company, a project manager directly manages all the project resources, but in other companies s/he may be simply responsible for creating and managing a work plan, and reporting project metrics. Similarly, a product manager in may be responsible for product design one company, but may be responsible for marketing campaigns in another.   Instead of thinking about achieving certain positions or titles, I suggest figuring out what you like best: Engineering (programming, architecture, infrastructure design and build, quality assurance) Inbound Product Management (business analysis, defining user stories and journeys, UI design, creating training collateral) Outbound Product Management (designing and running marketing campaigns, pricing) Project/Program Management (creating project charters, work planning, budgeting, project reporting) Sales (Complex one-on-one selling, technical sales) Customer support (Site deployment, customer enablement, web-based or telephone support) Keep in mind that today's Product Managers, Project/Program Managers and Salespersons may have started their careers as engineers. Some engineers grow into leadership positions such as Enterprise Architect (in IT organizations of large corporations), CTO, and Sr. Director/Vice President of Engineering. Some switch to Consulting roles.   In short, you may continue down the Engineering career path you have set for yourself. If you like it, stick to it. Otherwise, think about switching to a different career path where you may apply transferable skills you may acquire while being an engineer.