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This is so true! I see people in this thread talking about the contempt that "idea people" have for programmers/software engineers, but at the same time I have

This is so true! I see people in this thread talking about the contempt that "idea people" have for programmers/software engineers, but at the same time I have experienced Product Managers (the quintessential idea people?) who were really good at turning their ideas into super detailed specs. As an aside, I'm getting a bit tired from the "programmers vs product/business people" trope. The average software engineer would be nothing without a good product manager in my experience. And going by this thread, there seems to be at least as much contempt from programmers/software engineers for product people than allegedly vice versa.

Jensson 4y ago
> The average software engineer would be nothing without a good product manager in my experience The average software engineer doesn't have a good product manager, he has an average product manager. They still get things done.
sarchertech 4y ago
Many of us were working before product managers became a thing. When I went to school engineers were trained to work directly with customers and subject matter experts to gather and develop requirements. And that’s what we did when we started working. I think dividing work into programmer/UX/product manager is an actually huge regression.
- dtagames 4y ago
  This is so true. We waste so much time now because of the separation of these roles which must inevitably come together in the real codebase where the rubber meets the road. Software is of lower quality today and requires far more do-overs than it used to. As someone who liked working closely with customers and making decisions in all these areas (for their benefit), it has made the entire career far more of a slog than it used to be. Also, I find these endless internal cyclical conversations to be much more draining than actually writing code. Looping over and over with planners and ideas folks isn't energizing like actually writing the product is.

Jensson 4y ago

> The average software engineer would be nothing without a good product manager in my experience The average software engineer doesn't have a good product manager, he has an average product manager. They still get things done.

sarchertech 4y ago

Many of us were working before product managers became a thing. When I went to school engineers were trained to work directly with customers and subject matter experts to gather and develop requirements. And that’s what we did when we started working. I think dividing work into programmer/UX/product manager is an actually huge regression.

dtagames 4y ago
This is so true. We waste so much time now because of the separation of these roles which must inevitably come together in the real codebase where the rubber meets the road. Software is of lower quality today and requires far more do-overs than it used to. As someone who liked working closely with customers and making decisions in all these areas (for their benefit), it has made the entire career far more of a slog than it used to be. Also, I find these endless internal cyclical conversations to be much more draining than actually writing code. Looping over and over with planners and ideas folks isn't energizing like actually writing the product is.