Entry-Level Remote Product Manager Jobs: How Rare They Are, and Where They Hide
Six months of associate, junior, and APM listings pulled from company ATSes, plus the mid-level roles that quietly accept two years of experience
By Becky Schmidt ยท Last updated
Entry-level remote product manager jobs exist, but there are very few of them. Right now 24 of the 1,765 fully remote PM roles on this board are associate level, about 1.4%. Since April, 45 companies have posted one. The typical associate role pays a $109k midpoint and asks for under two years of experience. The better-stocked entry point is the mid-level listing that asks for two years or less. Today there are 35 of those at 30 companies, and most job seekers skip right past them because the title doesn't say "associate."
I run this board, and "associate" and "junior" are two of the words people type into its search box most often, right after "product manager" itself. The aggregator pages that rank for that search show a long list and let you assume the market is deep. Here is what the data says instead.
The short version
- Only 1.4% of open remote PM roles are associate level (24 of 1,765). Since April, that share has drifted down from about 2% to about 1.3%.
- That is roughly 9 to 12 new associate roles a month, across the whole remote market I track.
- The median associate role posts a $109k midpoint (yearly USD), with the middle half between $91k and $130k.
- Associate roles ask for 1.8 years of experience on average. Only 4 of 43 ask for none.
- 35 open mid-level roles at 30 companies ask for two years or less. That is more than the entire associate category.
- Associate roles close fast: 37 days on average, against 46 for senior roles. Several were gone within a week.
What this data is
Every listing here comes straight from a company's own applicant tracking system (Greenhouse, Lever, Ashby, Workday and a few others). I pull them nightly and keep a record of when each one first appeared and when it closed. I only count fully remote roles. Hybrid and onsite are excluded.
"Associate" is a seniority label the site assigns to each role from its title and description. It covers Associate PM, APM, Product Owner I, PM intern, trainee, and early-careers programme titles. I checked all of them by hand and removed two mislabels: a loss-prevention associate that had nothing to do with product, and a "Lead Associate" role asking for 15 years of experience. That second one matters. With it included, the average experience ask for open associate roles jumps from about 1.5 years to 2.3.
Tracking started in early April 2026, so "since April" means roughly six months of history. Some employers repost the same role every week. One insurance company reposted two associate titles 14 times between May and June. So when I count roles over time, I count each company and title once. For salaries I only use ranges posted in yearly US dollars, take the midpoint of each range, and drop anything under $40k or over $600k as a likely currency error. None of the associate roles needed dropping.
The sample is small. The whole associate category since April is 55 distinct roles, and I flag any cut thinner than about a dozen.
How rare entry-level remote PM roles are
Here is the full seniority mix of what is open on the board today.
| Level | Open remote roles | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Senior | 820 | 46% |
| Mid-level | 381 | 22% |
| Director | 170 | 10% |
| Staff | 150 | 8% |
| Principal | 136 | 8% |
| VP / Head | 74 | 4% |
| Associate | 24 | 1.4% |
Remote PM hiring leans heavily senior. There are 34 senior roles for every associate role. Remote teams want people who can work unsupervised across time zones from week one, and they mostly look for that in people who have done the job before.
It also isn't getting better. Here is the associate share of newly posted remote PM roles each month, counting each company and title once.
| Month (2026) | New remote PM roles | New associate roles | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| April | 448 | 9 | 2.0% |
| May | 578 | 9 | 1.6% |
| June | 672 | 12 | 1.8% |
| July | 656 | 11 | 1.7% |
| August | 685 | 9 | 1.3% |
| September (to the 22nd) | 405 | 5 | 1.2% |
Overall hiring grew through the summer and associate hiring didn't grow with it. The monthly counts are too small to read much into any single month, but a flat trickle against a growing market holds across all six.
What entry-level remote PM roles pay
Across 28 associate roles that posted a yearly USD range since April, the median midpoint is $108,750. The middle half sits between about $91k and $130k.
| Associate roles, yearly USD | Midpoint |
|---|---|
| Lowest (a PM trainee role) | $65,000 |
| 25th percentile | ~$91,000 |
| Median | $108,750 |
| 75th percentile | ~$130,000 |
| Highest (Instacart APM) | $166,500 |
That is lower than the $125k associate figure in my mid-2026 salary report. The gap is method. If you count every weekly repost as its own listing, one employer's 14 reposts, all at a $125k midpoint, land in the sample, and the median on the same data comes out at exactly $125k.
At the top, Instacart, Omada, Ocient, Scopely and Root all posted midpoints above $135k. The bottom is trainee and "consultant I" titles in the $65k to $85k range. Five associate roles in Canada posted in Canadian dollars and aren't in these numbers. The associate PM salary page has the live version, updated nightly.
Who has posted associate and APM roles since April
These are the 45 companies with a remote, entry-level PM listing since tracking started, grouped by the kind of role. Most posted once. Veeva, Jerry, PointClickCare and Binance posted repeatedly.
Associate Product Manager titles: Aledade, Amplify, Belvo, CareTalk Health, Eliza, Filevine, First Due, FourKites, Freeosk, InCharge Energy, Instacart, Jerry, Leap Tools, Lightcast, Ocient, Omada, PAR Technology, PointClickCare, Relo Metrics, Root, Spexi (a 12-month maternity cover contract), Turquoise, Veeva, Warner Music Group and YipitData.
Product Owner I and similar first-rung titles: Bamboo Health, Terex, Allstate (Product Management Consultant I), Ascension Publishing Group (Assistant Product Manager), Nelnet.
Programs, internships and trainee roles: Binance (several Accelerator Program and Pioneer Talent roles, all APAC), Booksy (Early Careers Programme, Poland), Autodesk (PM intern, Montreal), Cadence Solutions and Sweatpals (PM internships, US), CWILL (PM trainee), and a Stryker working-student role in Germany.
Plain "Product Manager" titles that were scoped as entry level: Impiricus, Solv, Sonatype, Smartleaf, UniCourt, 360dialog, Peek and Truelogic. Most people skip these because the title doesn't say "associate." Read the requirements, not the title.
A few more patterns in that list. Big-tech rotational APM programs didn't show up as remote in six months of data. The nearest thing was Binance's program, and it is limited to Asia. Many of these employers are in vertical software and health tech (Veeva, PointClickCare, Aledade, Omada, CareTalk, Bamboo Health, First Due), and those industries hire PMs with domain background. That comes up again in the section on ways in.
What they ask for
Of 43 associate roles that stated a minimum, the average ask was 1.8 years of experience:
| Minimum years asked | Roles |
|---|---|
| None | 4 |
| 1 year | 15 |
| 2 years | 16 |
| 3 years or more | 8 |
So "entry level" in remote PM mostly means one or two years of relevant work. It rarely means straight out of school. Four roles asked for no experience (Amplify, Booksy, Warner Music Group and one of the Binance programs). Eight asked for three or more, including Omada at five and Scopely at six. Those titles say associate, but the requirements are mid-level.
The skills that show up most across the 53 associate roles that listed any:
| Skill | Associate roles asking |
|---|---|
| SQL | 11 |
| Jira | 7 |
| A/B testing | 7 |
| Python | 6 |
| Agile | 6 |
| User stories | 6 |
| SaaS experience | 6 |
| AI tools (ChatGPT, Claude, and similar) | 5 |
| Computer science degree | 5 |
| Databricks | 4 |
SQL leads by a clear margin, and it leads for senior roles too. For associate roles the list is more about process (Jira, user stories, agile, UAT) and analysis (SQL, A/B testing, funnel analysis, Tableau, spreadsheets). Senior roles ask more about APIs, B2B SaaS and domain knowledge. The practical reading: at the entry level, companies want someone who can pull their own data and keep a backlog in order. That is teachable, and you can show it in a portfolio.
The realistic entry point: mid-level roles that accept two years
This was the most useful thing I found. Of the 298 open mid-level roles that state a minimum, 44 ask for two years or less. After removing duplicates and a couple of non-PM "product success specialist" roles, that is 35 distinct roles at 30 companies, more than the whole open associate category.
Some of the companies with one open right now: Veeva (Vault CRM product manager, posted in several US locations), MeridianLink (two lending-product roles), Expel (detection pipeline), WEX (healthcare payments), Splash Financial, StarRez, Routeware, Stedi and Spotify (a data platform role in Canada). Outside North America, Joko and Voodoo are hiring mid-level PMs with a two-year minimum in Europe.
These pay better than associate roles, too. The 15 that post a yearly USD range average a $121k midpoint, and most land between $105k and $140k. Fifteen is a thin sample, so treat that as a rough guide. The mid-level PM salary page has the full current band.
Veeva is worth a separate mention. It has 77 open remote PM roles on the board today, more than any other employer, and it posts at both the associate and mid levels with experience asks of one to two years. If you have a life sciences, pharma or healthcare background, its company page is a good place to start.
The catch is competition. A two-year minimum also draws people with five years applying down, so you need real product work to show from your two.
Where you can be based
Remote doesn't mean anywhere. Of the 55 associate roles since April (one listed no region):
| Eligible region | Roles |
|---|---|
| US only | 27 |
| US and Canada | 8 |
| Canada only | 4 |
| Asia-Pacific | 6 |
| Latin America | 4 |
| Worldwide | 3 |
| Europe | 2 |
About 70% are open only to people in North America. If you are in Europe, entry-level remote PM roles barely exist in this data, and your better bet is the mid-level roles with a two-year ask above. In Latin America, Belvo, Peek, Sonatype and Truelogic posted entry-level roles. In Asia, it is almost all Binance's programs plus one FourKites role that also accepted India. The international PM jobs and Europe boards filter for this directly.
They close fast
Associate roles that closed in the last 120 days stayed open 37 days on average (41 roles, weekly reposts excluded). Mid-level roles stayed open 45 days and senior roles 46. Some were gone within days: Instacart's APM listing closed in 2, InCharge Energy's and Root's in 3.
A closed listing doesn't always mean someone was hired; some roles get pulled or paused. Either way, applying in the first week matters much more here than it does for a senior role.
Honest ways into PM if the associate door is narrow
The data can't tell you how people got their first PM job. It only shows the openings. So the list below is limited to what the listings support plus what is widely known about how PM hiring works.
Move internally first. One of the most common ways into product management is a transfer: an engineer, designer, analyst, or customer success or support lead moving into a PM role at the company where they already work. The company already trusts you, so the missing "years of product experience" matters less. If your current employer has a product team, start there.
Use the adjacent titles in the data. Product Owner I roles (Bamboo Health, Terex) and business-operations roles attached to product (Jerry's "Associate, Business Operations - Product Management") sit a step to the side of PM, with lower bars. Forward-deployed PM roles, like Truelogic's in Latin America, pair product work with client delivery. None of these is the same job as APM. All of them give you product work to point to in your next application.
Bring the domain. A lot of these employers are in health tech, insurance, legal tech, public safety and life sciences software. A nurse, paralegal, firefighter, insurance analyst or pharma rep who learns SQL and can write a clear spec has something a general APM applicant doesn't. Veeva's Vault CRM associate listing, for example, asks for one year of work in tech, consulting, finance or analytics and lists life sciences field sales or field medical experience as a nice-to-have.
Build the two skills the listings ask for. SQL and experiment analysis (A/B testing, funnel analysis) top the associate requirements. Both can be shown with a public project, which beats a certificate line on a resume.
I wrote more on positioning in how to get a remote product manager job. If you come from a technical or data background, how to become an AI product manager covers a route where hiring is growing.
What to do with this
- Don't search only for "associate." Filter the board by mid-level and read the requirements for a one-to-two-year minimum. There are more of those roles than associate ones.
- Set an alert. At 9 to 12 new associate roles a month and a 37-day average life, checking once a week will make you miss some. Job alerts email you when new roles post.
- Check your eligibility first. Seventy percent are limited to North America, so read the location line before the title.
- Expect about $109k for an associate role and $121k for a mid-level role with a two-year ask, both at the midpoint. If an offer is well below that and isn't a trainee role, ask why.
- Run your resume through the matcher. It scores your resume against every open role, including the mid-level ones whose titles don't look entry level.
Keep going
- Associate product manager salaries and mid-level PM salaries, live bands updated nightly.
- Remote PM jobs posted in the last week, where new associate roles show up first.
- Closed roles, to see which entry-level listings just came down and who posted them.
- Best remote companies for PMs, if you would rather pick a target employer first.
- The full remote PM board.
Everything above came from listings companies published themselves. The numbers are small, and I think that is the most useful thing to know before you start this search.