Pathways in Spectroscopy: How to Be A Successful Product Manager

“Pathways in Spectroscopy” is an ongoing video series that spotlights emerging leaders in spectroscopy discussing various career-focused topics that spectroscopists want to know about.¹ In this episode, John Margeson, who is a Product Manager at Thermo Fisher Scientific in their Tewkesbury headquarters, discusses the skills and qualifications necessary in order to be a successful product manager for an instrument manufacturer.²

John Margeson: Product management is a growing field. I think what is sometimes not obvious to folks is that at its core, product management is a marketing function. We think of marketing oftentimes as advertising—telling the market of this great thing we have. But the inverse of marketing—upstream marketing—is critically important. That's really where product managers shine. It’s listening and identifying your market. It's learning what that market is, it’s those pain points that the market has, it's interacting with that market, and then it’s using that information to predict the trends. We were just talking about the trends we expect with handheld X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (XRF). As a product manager, I need to be doing that, and we do that on a segmented view. It’s not just handheld XRF in general, but specific applications and specific industries. What are their pain points? How do they differ? How are they growing? That's the type of exercise that a product manager you really need to be on top of.

That's externally focused, but I would say internally focused, when you’re working in any company or large organization, product management also presents a unique ability to interact with nearly every function of a business, which is something I view as a pro, because it's a positive aspect of the role. I get to see team members from different functions. I get to see what everyone is doing, and similar to how I need to understand my customers pain points, I get to understand all the different functions of what their pain points are. So, taking that same comprehensive view internally is another important skillset to work in product management.

And I would also say my background is in industrial engineering. I did not necessarily start my career looking at product management at the end goal. When the opportunity arose, I jumped for it, and I was eight years ago now. So, I would say that at this point I’m very happy with the journey of product management, and I am very excited to see how product management overall, as a function, grows.

References

1. Wetzel, W. Pathways in Spectroscopy, Episode 1: Sarah Theiner on Transitioning from Research to Sales. Spectroscopy. Available at: https://www.spectroscopyonline.com/view/pathways-in-spectroscopy-episode-1-sarah-theiner-on-transitioning-from-research-to-sales (accessed 2026-02-16).
2. Wetzel, W. Previewing Pathways in Spectroscopy: What Does it Mean to be a Product Manager? Spectroscopy. Available at: https://www.spectroscopyonline.com/view/previewing-pathways-in-spectroscopy-what-does-it-mean-to-be-a-product-manager- (accessed 2026-02-17).