I’ve served many roles in tech. Engineer, lead, manager, director and now founder. My experience is that when a product manager has true expertise, that produc

I’ve served many roles in tech. Engineer, lead, manager, director and now founder. My experience is that when a product manager has true expertise, that product manager is respected easily by the whole team. Likewise, when a product manager without specific expertise proves adept at prioritizing and gains a reputation for quality work, they are easily respected by the whole team. But in many cases the product manager is a Stanford MBA with a couple former roles at other tech companies and has never accomplished anything very impressive. And these hires are corrosive for a product org. They get in and hire more just like themselves. The problem is not the Stanford mba it’s that all they have is a Stanford mba and confidence in their own skills. It’s not enough to demand the respect of engineers who have sometimes worked years in the domain.