Currently I work for a big tech company that mostly doesn't employ PM roles, so I can give a first hand take on this. My feelings so far are mixed. I've worked

Currently I work for a big tech company that mostly doesn't employ PM roles, so I can give a first hand take on this. My feelings so far are mixed. I've worked in PM-heavy organizations before and I agree that those suck. But at the end of the day there is some work that a PM would do that still needs to be done. In my org that responsibility officially falls into Software Managers and Senior+ Developers. For example, if you are leading an initiative for your team as a Senior Engineer, you are in charge of doing all the activities that a PM would otherwise do. For other activities, the Manager or Senior Manager of the team is in charge. Suffice to say that as a developer this sucks. Not only you need to deliver your own work as an IC, but you need to coordinate other people and ensure that things get done. Not only this is extra work, but let's be honest, many developers don't have the skills to be effective PMs. It also makes inter-team collaboration difficult, since now you have to coordinate people that don't share a reporting structure with you. Often this approach results in lack of ownership, lack of accountability, duplicated efforts or things falling between the cracks, and general disorganization. That being said, it tends to work well for small intra team initiatives involving a few people, since it removes the overhead of a PM and places control in the hands of builders. But for larger initiative, I'm not quite convinced it works.