As a Product Professional juggling operational tasks and strategic responsibilities, you may be ready to find support. Operational support is essential for maintaining efficiency, but not all roles are created equal, and it can be challenging to determine the best fit for your team: from Executive Assistants to Product Operations teams, the varying forms of support each offer distinct benefits. In this article, we’ll break down the differences between some of the most common support roles, explore why a Product Ops Assistant is the best fit for many teams, and demonstrate how they can help maximize both efficiency and strategic focus.
While support can come in many forms, a few of the most common roles that product professionals may look to for help are: Executive Assistants, Product Operations team members, and Product Ops Assistants. While they all help with operational workloads, their focus, expertise, and level of personalization vary. Understanding the distinctions between these common roles will help you determine which form of support aligns best with your needs.
Executive Assistants
Executive Assistants (EAs) typically deliver personalized support focused on general administrative tasks that can be delegated. This includes helping executives manage their time, priorities, and day-to-day operations efficiently. Their responsibilities typically include scheduling meetings, handling correspondence, preparing reports, managing travel arrangements, and acting as a liaison between the executive and internal or external stakeholders. EAs play a critical role in streamlining workflows, anticipating needs, and ensuring smooth communication across teams. Beyond administrative tasks, they may also be involved in strategic planning, project management, and problem-solving, making them an invaluable asset to leadership.
However, Executive Assistants typically lack experience with the Product Development Life Cycle and the specific needs of Product Management.
Product Operations
Product Operations roles encompass a broad spectrum of functions — from managing customer feedback to coordinating releases and ensuring compliance, among many others. The specific responsibilities can vary significantly from one company to another, adapting to address unique operational challenges. For example, at Reddit, Product Ops focuses on coordinating product experiments and ensuring that experimentation is aligned with company goals. At Lever, the role is geared towards bridging the gap between support and engineering. Meanwhile, Uber’s Product Ops team places a strong emphasis on customer engagement, where Product Ops roles are directly responsible for talking to customers. Despite these differences, the overarching goal across companies remains consistent. According to the Product Ops Manifesto, the purpose of Product Operations is “empowering product organizations to collectively, effectively and efficiently drive the most meaningful outcomes for customers.”
Product Ops Assistants
As the Product Ops function developed, new specialized roles began emerging to address distinct needs within product organizations. The Product Ops Assistant is a pivotal role in this evolution, created to provide targeted, hands-on operational support on a more personal level. By taking on essential but time-consuming tasks that often drain resources across product functions, Product Ops Assistants empower product professionals to stay focused on high-impact, strategic initiatives that make the best use of their expertise.
The main role of a Product Ops Assistant is to alleviate the operational burden that falls on individual product professionals, such as CPOs, VPs of Product, Principal or Product Managers, Senior Product Owners, and even interim or freelance Product Managers and Consultants working with clients. Like Executive Assistants, they offer personalized support — but with a focus on product-specific operational responsibilities. Product Ops Assistants free up time for product professionals to focus on high-level initiatives that leverage their expertise — enabling them to nurture teams, refine product strategies, and ultimately drive business growth.
Product Ops Assistants differ from Executive Assistants in that, while they offer personalized support, they don’t manage email and calendars, or handle personal arrangements. Instead, Product Ops Assistants specialize in product management needs. With a foundational understanding of Product Management and the Product Development Life Cycle (PDLC), Product Ops Assistants can contribute across many more areas than an executive assistant could, from ideation and experimentation processes to team workflows and onboarding plans.
A notable distinction between Product Ops Assistants and other Product Ops roles is that Assistants work directly alongside specific individuals within the product team, rather than being embedded in a separate, cross-functional operations team. This proximity allows product professionals to directly influence how the Assistant allocates their time and allows for flexibility in quickly adapting to meet evolving team needs and priorities. Traditional Product Ops roles often require expertise in data, experimentation, or project ownership. In contrast, Product Ops Assistants provide flexible, hands-on support without the need for a large budget or extensive experience.This approach makes the role cost-effective, and opens up operational support to even smaller, resource-constrained teams.
Role comparisons: Understanding the differences
To make it easier to see how these roles differ, here’s a structured comparison:
- Executive assistant:
- Key responsibilities: Calendar & email management, travel arrangements, administrative support.
- Product management knowledge: Low.
- Personalization: High – supports an executive directly.
- Where they are most common: Leadership & C-suite.
- Product Operations:
- Key responsibilities: Process optimization, tooling, data management, stakeholder alignment.
- Product management knowledge: High.
- Personalization: Low – embedded within an operations team.
- Where they are most common: Large, cross-functional product teams.
- Product Ops Assistant:
- Key responsibilities: Release coordination, documentation, stakeholder engagement, team workflows.
- Product management knowledge: High.
- Personalization: High – works directly with product leaders.
- Where they are most common: Senior Product Professionals.
Why choose a Product Ops Assistant?
While each of these roles has its place, a Product Ops Assistant offers specialized, cost-effective, and flexible support tailored to the needs of product professionals. Unlike Executive Assistants, they have a deep understanding of product management. And unlike broader Product Ops roles, they work one-on-one with product leaders rather than functioning as part of a separate team.
By handling the specific operational burdens of your product team — and bringing the expertise to tackle any operational aspect, from managing release processes and onboarding team members to streamlining stakeholder communication and setting up feedback systems — Product Ops Assistants free product leaders to focus on what they do best: driving strategy and delivering value.
For product professionals overwhelmed by operational work, a Product Ops Assistant is an effective solution for reclaiming time, improving efficiency, and staying focused on strategy. While Executive Assistants and Product Ops teams all provide valuable contributions, none offer the hands-on, product-specific, and personalized support that a Product Ops Assistant delivers. With a Product Ops Assistant, you can offload time-consuming tasks and stay focused on leadership, strategy, and impact.
At Sharpa, we offer premium operational support tailored to Product Leaders. Our trained Product Ops Assistants are ready to contribute after only a brief onboarding. Don’t let hiring decisions slow you down — get started today and we’ll set you up with a dedicated professional to help you reclaim your focus.
