3 ms·

waiting for an engineer to jump in here and tell everyone how useless PMs are.

reilly3000 8y ago
Gotta love it when engineers fail to see the value in People people, then when their startup dies they blame their tech stack and users. Unless the engineers are willing and able to competently wear that hat and can manage their time well enough to still ship, product market fit just won’t happen.
- vvram 8y ago
  Role of a dedicated product hat is diminishing as your customer value delivery chain becomes more efficient, assuming the engineering and founders are in tune with the market signals and can react fast. The role of product in a startup with founders makes more impactful, assuming you are not blind to outside forces.
Brajeshwar 8y ago
I’ve commented few times in similar situations, I hope I can be of more use today too. I hope you will think this over and/or connect the dots backward when you realized this in the future. How do I know? Because I went through them — started as a developer, turned to design, involved in business, started/exited few Startups, and continued to help Startups. When I was in the engineering role, I thought everyone else was an idiot and “they don’t get it.” I thought that all the talks are useless when I can just go, write codes and get the “actual final thing done.” In my defense, I heard last time, some of my codes are still working on AT&T, Walt Disney to name a few. When I realized that there are lots of engineers, who are much better than me, I jumped to designing and did a whole lot of designs too for many known brands, some unknown and many Startups during their early days, including few of our own. I sometimes see the logo of an established on billboards and I proudly claim, that was one of my early works and I designed that logo. I dabbled in designs before the development/engineering phase of my life. Because I can empathize with engineering, I became more lenient with my thought but I sometimes wondered, “let them program it but I’ll add the final beauty and that is what it sells.” Then I got in love with business and once upon a time even closed deals worth multiple thousand dollars. By that time I began to realize the importance of every role * the irritating salesperson is no longer irritating but began to fascinate me. * loved working with a bunch of project manager that shield the team from the clients and cushion everything that came in hard. * brilliant work by the business development team that makes life clearer for everyone to work on. * and the product managers that lingers on to all the silly, nitty-gritty, boring work long after the engineers and the designers moved on “interesting challenges”. Yes, everyone has a role and they play their part. If you play a role in the whole cycle, play your part and do it well. If you’re that good an engineer who can start from A and finish till the Z, then you’re already a good person and won’t say such thing as “xyz is useless because I’m abc.”
ulfw 8y ago
Yup. That happened already. (see above)
Stuckinsofa 8y ago
Maybe because there are so many incompetent PMs? The PM working I'm working with does not know the product feature set (except for the very basics), does not have any vision or goals, does not have a systematic approach to talking to collecting feedback from customers. What's on our backlog changes dramatically and when project ends we basically start with a new product backlog. When customers have questions on basic stuff he has to defer to engineering. Any competent hire can be useful, but hiring good PMs is maybe even harder than good engineers. So people bitch.
- polote 8y ago
  Yes it is exactly true, the issue right now in the field of product management, is most PM are in fact PO (product owner) they manage the sprint. But these people have the title of product manager. Product manager is required job in any company that wants to grow and deliver best products. But these people are very hard to find and very expensive, so instead we hire PO and give them the title of PM and ask them to do what the CEO is asking
bg24 8y ago
Engineers operate at a level where contribution/output matters on an average. PM's operate to demonstrate progress and continually garner positive mindset of leadership. Unfortunately, that means it is okay if an engineer feels PM is useless. What's not acceptable is if a senior leader feels and comments negatively on performance of a PM. PM job can be thankless if you try to make everyone happy, and you've way more things to do with limited time.

Gotta love it when engineers fail to see the value in People people, then when their startup dies they blame their tech stack and users. Unless the engineers are willing and able to competently wear that hat and can manage their time well enough to still ship, product market fit just won’t happen.

vvram 8y ago
Role of a dedicated product hat is diminishing as your customer value delivery chain becomes more efficient, assuming the engineering and founders are in tune with the market signals and can react fast. The role of product in a startup with founders makes more impactful, assuming you are not blind to outside forces.

Brajeshwar 8y ago

I’ve commented few times in similar situations, I hope I can be of more use today too. I hope you will think this over and/or connect the dots backward when you realized this in the future. How do I know? Because I went through them — started as a developer, turned to design, involved in business, started/exited few Startups, and continued to help Startups. When I was in the engineering role, I thought everyone else was an idiot and “they don’t get it.” I thought that all the talks are useless when I can just go, write codes and get the “actual final thing done.” In my defense, I heard last time, some of my codes are still working on AT&T, Walt Disney to name a few. When I realized that there are lots of engineers, who are much better than me, I jumped to designing and did a whole lot of designs too for many known brands, some unknown and many Startups during their early days, including few of our own. I sometimes see the logo of an established on billboards and I proudly claim, that was one of my early works and I designed that logo. I dabbled in designs before the development/engineering phase of my life. Because I can empathize with engineering, I became more lenient with my thought but I sometimes wondered, “let them program it but I’ll add the final beauty and that is what it sells.” Then I got in love with business and once upon a time even closed deals worth multiple thousand dollars. By that time I began to realize the importance of every role * the irritating salesperson is no longer irritating but began to fascinate me. * loved working with a bunch of project manager that shield the team from the clients and cushion everything that came in hard. * brilliant work by the business development team that makes life clearer for everyone to work on. * and the product managers that lingers on to all the silly, nitty-gritty, boring work long after the engineers and the designers moved on “interesting challenges”. Yes, everyone has a role and they play their part. If you play a role in the whole cycle, play your part and do it well. If you’re that good an engineer who can start from A and finish till the Z, then you’re already a good person and won’t say such thing as “xyz is useless because I’m abc.”

ulfw 8y ago

Yup. That happened already. (see above)

Stuckinsofa 8y ago

Maybe because there are so many incompetent PMs? The PM working I'm working with does not know the product feature set (except for the very basics), does not have any vision or goals, does not have a systematic approach to talking to collecting feedback from customers. What's on our backlog changes dramatically and when project ends we basically start with a new product backlog. When customers have questions on basic stuff he has to defer to engineering. Any competent hire can be useful, but hiring good PMs is maybe even harder than good engineers. So people bitch.

polote 8y ago
Yes it is exactly true, the issue right now in the field of product management, is most PM are in fact PO (product owner) they manage the sprint. But these people have the title of product manager. Product manager is required job in any company that wants to grow and deliver best products. But these people are very hard to find and very expensive, so instead we hire PO and give them the title of PM and ask them to do what the CEO is asking

bg24 8y ago

Engineers operate at a level where contribution/output matters on an average. PM's operate to demonstrate progress and continually garner positive mindset of leadership. Unfortunately, that means it is okay if an engineer feels PM is useless. What's not acceptable is if a senior leader feels and comments negatively on performance of a PM. PM job can be thankless if you try to make everyone happy, and you've way more things to do with limited time.