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Being the "product guy" is a shitload of work. I know, that's the role I serve in the company that I founded. Customer interaction, roadmaps, design, prioritiza

Being the "product guy" is a shitload of work. I know, that's the role I serve in the company that I founded. Customer interaction, roadmaps, design, prioritization of features, plans for growth -- it's hard and it's a lot of work. It's so much work that I don't even have time to code any more, because it's so much more than 1 job. Seems like developers just like to hate on anyone who's not a developer because the developers can't see the work they don't have to do. Whether or not many Product Managers in bigcos are full of shit doesn't say anything about the profession whatsoever. What it says is that most people are incompetent at their jobs, and lazy. Which is also true of most developers. It's sad for me to see HN continuing to leap to confirm its own biases instead of questioning them.

adambrault 15y ago
Agree. As the guy who generally plays this role on our team, I'm quite certain none of our developers would say they outwork me. It's easy to see how someone without practical boots-on-the-ground, neck-on-the-line experience in design, development, or business could be utterly horrible to work with as a product manager. But in that case, you're just working with someone who's unqualified and propped up by authority. Forget role or job title. That's painful under any circumstances.
lucisferre 15y ago
It's not HN confirming the biases it's real world "PM"s who are often completely unqualified as well as the many businesses out there who encourage this because they can't seem to understand what the role is or what would qualify someone to do it well. Management, in general, gets a lot of flak from "makers" because of how convenient it is to (as one friend of mine put it) "hide from the work". That isn't to say there isn't incredibly important stuff management needs to be doing, just that there are more people not doing it than there are doing it well and it's the makers who often suffer for it, or worse are blamed for poor team performance. Basically, until that reality changes I'd expect to see a lot more people slogging on "PM"s.
- ahoyhere 15y ago
  It's not Manager Quarterly confirming biases it's real world "coders" who are often completely unqualified as well as the many businesses out ther who encourage this because they can't seem to understand what the role is or what would qualify someone to do it well. Developers, in general, get a lot of flak from "bosses" because of how convenient it is to (as one friend of mine put it) "hide from the work". That isn't to say there isn't incredibly important stuff programming needs to be doing, just that there are more people not doing it than there are doing it well and it's the makers who often suffer for it, or worse are blamed for poor team performance. Basically, until that reality changes I'd expect to see a lot more people slogging on "coder"s.
rwhitman 15y ago
I concur. I made a leap from developer to fulltime Product Manager about 6 months ago, thinking it would be some sort of 'vacation' that would allow me more time to code in my free time... I quickly discovered product work is so, so much more demanding a position than writing code that I barely have time to do anything else but work.

adambrault 15y ago

Agree. As the guy who generally plays this role on our team, I'm quite certain none of our developers would say they outwork me. It's easy to see how someone without practical boots-on-the-ground, neck-on-the-line experience in design, development, or business could be utterly horrible to work with as a product manager. But in that case, you're just working with someone who's unqualified and propped up by authority. Forget role or job title. That's painful under any circumstances.

lucisferre 15y ago

It's not HN confirming the biases it's real world "PM"s who are often completely unqualified as well as the many businesses out there who encourage this because they can't seem to understand what the role is or what would qualify someone to do it well. Management, in general, gets a lot of flak from "makers" because of how convenient it is to (as one friend of mine put it) "hide from the work". That isn't to say there isn't incredibly important stuff management needs to be doing, just that there are more people not doing it than there are doing it well and it's the makers who often suffer for it, or worse are blamed for poor team performance. Basically, until that reality changes I'd expect to see a lot more people slogging on "PM"s.

ahoyhere 15y ago
It's not Manager Quarterly confirming biases it's real world "coders" who are often completely unqualified as well as the many businesses out ther who encourage this because they can't seem to understand what the role is or what would qualify someone to do it well. Developers, in general, get a lot of flak from "bosses" because of how convenient it is to (as one friend of mine put it) "hide from the work". That isn't to say there isn't incredibly important stuff programming needs to be doing, just that there are more people not doing it than there are doing it well and it's the makers who often suffer for it, or worse are blamed for poor team performance. Basically, until that reality changes I'd expect to see a lot more people slogging on "coder"s.

rwhitman 15y ago

I concur. I made a leap from developer to fulltime Product Manager about 6 months ago, thinking it would be some sort of 'vacation' that would allow me more time to code in my free time... I quickly discovered product work is so, so much more demanding a position than writing code that I barely have time to do anything else but work.