Understanding Product Specialists
What Four Data Points Reveal About an Emerging Role
As product organizations grow and mature, new roles emerge to fill the gaps between strategy and execution. One such role that's been appearing more frequently in the Estonian tech scene is the "Product Specialist", but what does it actually mean?
To better understand this emerging position, I recently shared a questionnaire within the local product community, asking those who have held Product Specialist roles to describe their responsibilities, challenges, and day-to-day work. While I received only two responses from fintech companies, two additional data points emerged: a current job posting from an AI-powered platform seeking a Product Specialist, and insights from a Product Operations Specialist at a major Estonian mobility company.
These four perspectives (three from practitioners and one from a hiring organization) provide surprisingly revealing insights about both the potential and the pitfalls of how organizations are structuring these roles. Rather than waiting for a larger sample size, I believe these early signals can help product leaders avoid digging themselves into deeper organizational holes when creating specialist positions.
The Role's Core Identity
The existing practitioners struggle with role definition, but their contexts vary significantly. The first, a Screening Product Specialist at a 5,000-person fintech, describes their work as making "delays on payments as seamless as possible" within regulatory requirements. When asked about success metrics, they admit:
At least on my team, this was a bit of a blur. We didn't have KPIs as we were working on fixing regulatory gaps... Once the regulatory gaps were done, there was no clear guidance on what was expected from us as Product Specialists.
The second respondent, a Junior Product Specialist at a 400+ employee banking company, offers perhaps the most telling description:
The funniest and easiest way I like to describe my role sometimes is 'santa's (my PM's) little helper' as I aim to decrease the burden of my manager with nitty-gritty, more hands-on and specialized tasks.
A fourth perspective comes from a Product Operations Specialist at a major mobility company, who reveals a different dynamic entirely. Rather than ambiguity, they describe frustration with artificial constraints:
I see exactly the problem, I know what would be the solution, I have contacts across [the company] to deliver the solution. But I am blocked by PMs like 'nana, wait for big boys to do their job.'
They note:
Your PMs come to us for consultation, not we to them...
Meanwhile, the AI company's job posting presents yet another vision. Their Product Specialist will "drive the adoption of new platform features, enhance operational workflows, and promote alignment toward shared goals." Rather than being a helper or being blocked, this posting positions the role as "critical" with ownership of "shaping how internal adoption happens at scale."
The contrast reveals four distinct models:
Regulatory compliance executor - handling payments and regulatory gaps
PM helper - supporting managers with specialized tasks
Constrained problem-solver - seeing solutions but blocked from executing
Empowered adoption driver - owning platform feature adoption at scale
This suggests either an evolution in how organizations think about the role, or a fundamental disconnect between job posting aspirations and workplace reality.
The Skills Paradox
The alignment between what practitioners have developed and what employers seek is noticeable. Both fintech specialists possess technical competencies—Jira, data analysis tools (Looker, Google Analytics), cross-functional communication, and framework knowledge (Agile, Scrum). The Junior Product Specialist specifically highlights "web design and design thinking" and "basic understanding of coding" as valuable skills.
The AI company's requirements mirror this almost perfectly: "basic scripting, coding, or AI-assisted coding tools," "excellent analytical and problem-solving abilities," and "strong cross-functional collaboration skills with the ability to explain technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders."
The mobility company specialist adds another dimension: deep operational knowledge and cross-company networks. They describe having "contacts across [the company] to deliver the solution" and serving as consultants to PMs rather than vice versa.
The measurement challenge persists across all contexts:
Neither fintech organization has figured out how to systematically measure specialist impact
The Screening Product Specialist worked for over a year without clear KPIs
The Junior Product Specialist admits there's "no real metric" being tracked
The AI company's posting focuses on activities rather than measurable outcomes
The Expertise-Authority Gap
Both respondents demonstrate deep operational knowledge—understanding regulatory requirements, architecting solutions, facilitating cross-team alignment—but report directly to Product Managers rather than having decision-making authority. This creates an interesting dynamic: they're positioned as subject matter experts but function as execution arms.
The Screening Product Specialist explains:
On a daily basis I don't think there was any difference [from Product Management]. We both would work on the discovery phase, and how to solve the specific problem. In my understanding... the Product Manager would be the one gathering the information to present to higher ups, board members, or regulatory bodies, while as a Product Specialist, I wouldn't do it.
They're heavily involved in analysis and problem-solving but rarely get to make the final call on solutions they've helped design.
What the Responses Don't Tell Us
The questionnaire responses reveal notable blind spots:
No discussion of business strategy connection - how their work relates to broader company goals
Missing customer outcome focus - no mention of end-user impact or satisfaction
Unclear revenue impact - absence of financial or business metric discussions
Limited roadmap influence - no indication of how they shape product direction
Vague career progression - both struggle to articulate advancement paths
Most tellingly, both struggle to articulate career progression. The Screening Product Specialist notes:
From one level above (Associate Product Manager), there is a very nice career path and what is expected from it
implying their current level lacks such clarity.
The Biggest Challenges
When asked about their primary challenges, both responses point to organizational gaps rather than technical or market difficulties.
The Screening Product Specialist cites:
Lack of guidance
Lack of clear feedback from leadership team
Unclear processes
The Junior Product Specialist identifies a growth paradox:
I think the more you grow in your role, the less time you have to 'build' something yourself or be more 'hands-on' because you have to spend more time managing and communicating with different people.
These aren't problems with the individuals. They're symptoms of organizations creating roles without thinking through their purpose, growth trajectory, or integration with existing structures.
The Industry Evolution
The initial fintech pattern suggested Product Specialists emerge primarily in highly regulated industries, dealing with compliance requirements and regulatory constraints. But the additional perspectives reveal a broader pattern.
Different contexts, similar needs:
AI company - focuses on platform feature adoption and translation process optimization
Mobility company - handles operational gaps and unfinished product workflows
Fintech - manages regulatory requirements and payment processing complexities
This is the most illuminating perspective on why these roles really emerge:
Product Ops Specialists exist because there are many cracks or unfinished products/processes/workflows, which is why they require a person who would coordinate improvements to these unfinished products and manually resolve issues which emerge from these cracks.
This suggests Product Specialists aren't just responding to regulatory complexity or technological sophistication. They're emerging to handle the operational reality of incomplete product development. The common thread isn't the industry, it's the gap between what gets shipped and what actually works. Perhaps a problem of heavily operational industries?
Implications for Product Organizations
So, rather than Product Specialists emerging where product management is too broad, might they be emerging where product execution is systematically incomplete? Are they decomposing PM responsibilities or are they filling gaps that shouldn't exist in the first place?
Key advice from practitioners:
Screening Product Specialist emphasizes:
Focus on how to communicate with people and translate the conversation... it's our job to make sure this bridge is built and make things move forward.
Junior Product Specialist suggests:
If you have natural curiosity for the world in general... strong problem-solving and entrepreneurial mindset, and perhaps something that makes you stand out or special... you should be good to go.
These roles require people who can see problems clearly and have the network to solve them, but who may be artificially constrained from doing so.
All practitioners focus on individual adaptability and resilience rather than organizational support, suggesting even well-intentioned companies may be creating roles that require exceptional people to succeed despite structural limitations.
Conclusion
Four data points reveal both concerning patterns and uncomfortable truths about how product organizations are structuring specialist roles. The practitioners demonstrate competence and fill genuine organizational needs, yet three of the four describe systemic constraints: unclear purpose, lack of measurement, or artificial barriers to execution.
For product leaders, this represents both an opportunity and a warning:
The opportunity: Recognizing that if you need Product Specialists to handle operational gaps, you might have deeper product development process issues to address.
The threat: Creating these roles without fixing underlying execution problems creates technical debt at the organizational level.
Before creating your next Product Specialist role, ask yourself:
What specific execution gap are you filling that wouldn't exist with better product development discipline?
Are you hiring someone to coordinate fixes for incomplete work, or to genuinely extend capabilities?
How will you measure success beyond "handling the things that break"?
When your specialists can see solutions but can't execute them, you've created a role designed for organizational friction.
The AI company's job posting suggests some organizations are learning to position these roles with genuine ownership and impact. Whether that translates to workplace reality remains to be seen, but it represents a more thoughtful approach than reactive gap-filling.
As one respondent beautifully summarized:
Product is a whole new world inside a company. It is at the same time very challenging, rewarding, and frustrating. It's up to us to focus on what brings us joy.
The question is: Are we creating Product Specialist roles that enable that joy by genuinely extending capabilities, or are we systematically preventing it by normalizing the cleanup of incomplete work? The early signals suggest the answer depends entirely on whether we're solving for better execution or just managing the consequences of poor execution, and that makes all the difference.