> What I have noticed even in top engineering companies is an interesting dichotomy. Product determines the "innovation", engineering determines how to build it

> What I have noticed even in top engineering companies is an interesting dichotomy. Product determines the "innovation", engineering determines how to build it. I wonder if thats because, if you let engineers do both, you end up with a mess and accomplish nothing. The top companies have product and engineering working closely together. This allows product people to go deep on optimizing their product skills and engineers to go deep on optimizing their development skills, both of which are most effective when performed in conjunction with each other as part of a strong team. There are great product-minded engineers and great engineering-minded product managers out there, but it's much easier to find people who are simply good at their domain and know how to work closely with people in other domains to get things done. Some companies try to cargo-cult this by drawing a dividing line: Product defines the "what" and engineers define the "how". Product works in isolation, hands things off to engineers, then engineers churn through tickets in isolation. This is not good at all.