Pierre-Michel Menger joined the CNRS in 1981 and pursued his career there, first as a research fellow and later as a research director. In 1999, he was awarded the CNRS Silver Medal. Alongside his research activities, he has taught at EHESS as Director of Studies since 1995. At EHESS, he directed the Centre for the Sociology of Work and the Arts from 1992 to 2005. He also taught at the Paris Institute of Political Studies (Sciences Po). Since 2013, Pierre-Michel Menger has been Professor at the Collège de France, where he holds the Sociology of Creative Work Chair.

Pierre-Michel Menger's work has been particularly influential in the sociology of artistic labour, creative work, and cultural production. His research examines the organisation of artistic careers, labour-market uncertainty, flexibility, and the broader transformations of work under contemporary capitalism. Among his most influential publications are Portrait de l'artiste en travailleur: Métamorphoses du capitalisme (2003), which analyses the artist as a model for emerging labour conditions under contemporary capitalism; Profession artiste: Extension du domaine de la création (2005); Les intermittents du spectacle: Sociologie d'une exception (2005), later revised and expanded as Les intermittents du spectacle: Sociologie du travail flexible (2011); and Le travail créateur: S'accomplir dans l'incertain (2009), a major synthesis of his work on artistic labour, uncertainty, and achievement in creative professions. This latter work was subsequently adapted and published in English as The Economics of Creativity: Art and Achievement Under Uncertainty (2014), introducing his key arguments to a broader international readership.