I struggled with this, a lot when I joined as a systems analyst and I worried about my future at different companies with this title. The disconnect here is that you’re assuming future hiring managers evaluate candidates based on the HR title printed on a badge rather than the scope of work they actually performed.
A Product Manager is not defined by the words “Product Manager” appearing in Who’s who. They’re defined by ownership of product strategy, prioritization, stakeholder management, roadmap decisions, requirements definition, and outcomes. If you spent your time deciding what gets built, balancing business priorities, gathering customer feedback, writing requirements, and partnering with engineering, that’s product management work regardless of whether Fidelity called the role Systems Analyst, Product Owner, or something else.
Likewise, a Systems Analyst isn’t automatically a Product Manager just because a company changes a title. Traditionally, systems analysts focus on translating business requirements into technical solutions, process analysis, documentation, and implementation support. That’s a different discipline.
The reason many experienced hiring managers don’t get hung up on titles is because they’ve seen every variation imaginable. Banks, insurers, healthcare companies, and Fortune 500 firms have spent decades creating their own naming conventions. During an interview, nobody is forced to say “I was a Systems Analyst therefore I only did Systems Analyst work.” You explain your responsibilities and outcomes.
If your concern is marketability, that’s fair. But the solution isn’t pretending titles don’t vary across companies. The solution is clearly articulating what you actually owned. A resume bullet that says “Owned roadmap prioritization for trader-facing platform features” tells a hiring manager far more about your qualifications than whatever HR happened to call the role.
The real question isn’t “What was your title?” It’s “What decisions were you responsible for making?” That’s the distinction future employers care about.