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As employee #36 I lived through some of these things first hand and definitely agree with them (I think we were over 200 people when I left). It was painful go

As employee #36 I lived through some of these things first hand and definitely agree with them (I think we were over 200 people when I left). It was painful going through the enterprise focus transition along with a nonsensical reorg imposed by the aforementioned Big Tech VP. One day we had focused platform-specific teams working on satisfying customers, the next we were moved to cross-functional feature teams and focused on enterprise features that (from our perspective) no one ever asked for. I also felt the sting from mediocre engineering managers. I remember sitting down with Tracy and Ralph at Uptown Bar and giving them both barrels on what I thought of several managers. To their credit those managers weren't working there very long after that conversation. IIRC Ralph asked if I wanted to move to being a manager and I declined but in hindsight I think that was a mistake - we needed good management in engineering more than we needed my code. Another thing that hurt us was hiring a bunch of PMs. Most of them were condescending, ignorant, or both... but suddenly they were telling the engineers who had built everything what to do? IIRC we could have cut that department down to two people with no loss. The leader of this product team was a manager that just didn't seem to be doing his job, only pushing paperwork and giving scatterbrained presentations. I never did find out why he was kept on so long. I think I very cheekily asked Tracy one time which of his relatives worked at Y2K or Sequoia such that he couldn't be fired because it was clear everyone in engineering was fed up with his nonsense. I'm pretty sure at least several top engineers quit due to that guy specifically. Either way I don't regret my time at PlanGrid. It was a great team and I'm proud of what the team did and what I did.

fakedang 4y ago
As an outsider to the tech industry, it seems to me that the Product Manager/Product Owner role seems to be not only the most BS role, but also the most damaging role? Considering that I saw a post a few weeks back, I saw a similar post (I think on HN itself) where PMs were being fired en masse, I wonder if there is any real utility with the product team, or if it's just a holdover from Google doing its thing back in the days that everyone decided to copy.
- pixiemaster 4y ago
  I wouldn‘t agree with the BS label, as a good PM/PO can really help along. but with that kind of role, contribution quality is rarely assed correctly, and at the same time, the sandwhich role between contributors, management, and customers, combined with a usually communication-savvy skillset can be extremely dangerous. even worse in impact than a highly visible „bad“ EVP/SVP.
  - willio58 4y ago
    This. I've had micromanager PMs that made my life hell and I've had PMs that advocate for me to others. It's all about hiring the right people and healthy company culture.
- skrtskrt 4y ago
  You need both good PMs and an organization that is set up to utilize PMs well.
- vasco 4y ago
  I good PM does great things if they are very busy across teams and don't have time to hassle people about shenanigans and instead talk to users and understand the product deeply. Many places though have too many PMs that never talk to users and pretend like they know what they want.
- ZephyrBlu 4y ago
  PMs tend to have a lot of leverage, so a bad one makes a very large negative impact. A good PM is worth their weight in gold though. I think of them as basically glue. They just help make shit get done. That could be helping co-ordinate between eng and design, doing customer research, managing expectations, etc. Whole range of things that different PMs do.
- HatchedLake721 4y ago
  Of course there is. If not for the PM, who will speak with the customers, gather, analyze and understand their needs and problems? There should be a person that drives the product in the right direction based on customer conversations. In the early stages founder is the product owner. But as the company grows, the role of the founder/CEO changes. You now build the people, and people build the business. Engineers or CEOs building features no one asked for is IMHO one of the major reasons lots of tech startups fail. Awesome idea, cool product, but no one asked for that feature you were building for 2 months. (guilty here myself)
Ben-G 4y ago
Hah - what a vivid recollection. It's been a while - we should catch up soon :)
hemloc_io 4y ago
let's go Uptown! One of the more colorful bars in the mission for sure :) Their bathroom is fun
- gms 4y ago
  Another former PlanGrid employee here - our office was next door :D
  - mattlong 4y ago
    There are dozens of us!
paulsutter 4y ago
“Product Manager” is a double category error - the right title is customer analyst. This clarifies the actual function of the role, and eliminates most of the dysfunction
- faangiq 4y ago
  Yep

fakedang 4y ago

As an outsider to the tech industry, it seems to me that the Product Manager/Product Owner role seems to be not only the most BS role, but also the most damaging role? Considering that I saw a post a few weeks back, I saw a similar post (I think on HN itself) where PMs were being fired en masse, I wonder if there is any real utility with the product team, or if it's just a holdover from Google doing its thing back in the days that everyone decided to copy.

pixiemaster 4y ago
I wouldn‘t agree with the BS label, as a good PM/PO can really help along. but with that kind of role, contribution quality is rarely assed correctly, and at the same time, the sandwhich role between contributors, management, and customers, combined with a usually communication-savvy skillset can be extremely dangerous. even worse in impact than a highly visible „bad“ EVP/SVP.
- willio58 4y ago
  This. I've had micromanager PMs that made my life hell and I've had PMs that advocate for me to others. It's all about hiring the right people and healthy company culture.
skrtskrt 4y ago
You need both good PMs and an organization that is set up to utilize PMs well.
vasco 4y ago
I good PM does great things if they are very busy across teams and don't have time to hassle people about shenanigans and instead talk to users and understand the product deeply. Many places though have too many PMs that never talk to users and pretend like they know what they want.
ZephyrBlu 4y ago
PMs tend to have a lot of leverage, so a bad one makes a very large negative impact. A good PM is worth their weight in gold though. I think of them as basically glue. They just help make shit get done. That could be helping co-ordinate between eng and design, doing customer research, managing expectations, etc. Whole range of things that different PMs do.
HatchedLake721 4y ago
Of course there is. If not for the PM, who will speak with the customers, gather, analyze and understand their needs and problems? There should be a person that drives the product in the right direction based on customer conversations. In the early stages founder is the product owner. But as the company grows, the role of the founder/CEO changes. You now build the people, and people build the business. Engineers or CEOs building features no one asked for is IMHO one of the major reasons lots of tech startups fail. Awesome idea, cool product, but no one asked for that feature you were building for 2 months. (guilty here myself)

Ben-G 4y ago

Hah - what a vivid recollection. It's been a while - we should catch up soon :)

hemloc_io 4y ago

let's go Uptown! One of the more colorful bars in the mission for sure :) Their bathroom is fun

gms 4y ago
Another former PlanGrid employee here - our office was next door :D
- mattlong 4y ago
  There are dozens of us!

paulsutter 4y ago

“Product Manager” is a double category error - the right title is customer analyst. This clarifies the actual function of the role, and eliminates most of the dysfunction

faangiq 4y ago
Yep