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> Unfortunately, [engineers] are not usually very good at thinking about the people who will use their systems, taking their preferences into account, and treat
by rektide 4y ago
> Unfortunately, [engineers] are not usually very good at thinking about the people who will use their systems, taking their preferences into account, and treating them like customers who they are trying to keep.
That engineers are all bad at people, have no interest in helping users has many visible obvious manifestions. But wow, I've grown really really tired of this kind of infantalizing dreck. I'd way rather try to find healthy & balanced engineers than work with anyone with this kind of "piss off engineer, we are the real channel to truth & value here" shitshow attitude.
Engineers often have a much more nuanced, complex, & advanced bead on what is possible, where to shoot for, & why it's good than product people. This downtalking article telling us we're bad at making useable things & that we need to change everything is part of a long long long line of corporate hierarchy games & clutching to power.
Edit: fwiw, most of the advice I'd grade as "not bad". But omg please never ever couch it like this.
- alex1212 4y agoTotally agree with you on this one, though I am in the unique position of building a tool for engineers. If anything they more careful and considerate than commercially minded folks who just want to ship features.
- bramblerose 4y agoThe "they" in that sentence refers to "infrastructure organizations", not to "engineers". The post then points out that hiring Product Managers is not a silver bullet, and that a wider cultural change where engineers talk to end users is required. Which seems to be pretty close to what you're arguing for.
- rektide 4y agoYes. The article is indeed talking about a pretty specific subset of companies. "Adding product management to more traditional software infrastructure organizations, sometimes with a shift towards platform engineering, is all the rage today."
- JonChesterfield 4y agoI'm doubtful that product owners are net positive. The idea that they'd be mistaken for a silver bullet is surreal.
- bebna 4y agoYeah, w/o the engineers own desires there wouldn't be any open source community, or for a more fitting example of knowing what people want: Adblockers.
- drewcoo 4y agoI read that as "engineers, who otherwise would be the greatest customer advocates, are horribly mismanaged."
- daniel_iversen 4y agoBecause I'm only working with software engineers and PMs I didn't read the article that negatively. I believe that when a product becomes big enough or its user base becomes large it can be very hard to empathize with all your different kinds of customers and external users, and therefore it pays to have a dedicated function (PM, PMM, designers, researchers etc) that can help with that process. It also pays to have a dedicated groups who can help be a more central point for creating a coherent product roadmap (which everyone of course feed requirements into (and engineers help scope, rank etc.))