It's not at all laughable that most engineers can't translate business or compliance requirements into engineering or UX requirements. It's a different languag

It's not at all laughable that most engineers can't translate business or compliance requirements into engineering or UX requirements. It's a different language to them. It's like asking an American to translate Swahili into English. It's possible that a few could do it, but the vast majority would be unable to do so. In this respect, having a domain-experienced programmer is just as "rare" (or even rarer) than a "great" PM. The programmers are the ones least suited to figuring out what the product should do because they aren't the ones who are going to use it. They approach the problem from a programmer's perspective on the technical requirements of implementation, not on the user's functionality (PM) or usability (UX) requirements. Product Managers design the product from a standpoint of actual domain experience for the end customer to use. (I say this as someone who has been both a PM and a SE.)