[mlthoughts2018]

> “Frankly, I don't see why an engineer would know what the customer wants better than a product manager”

The engineer usually spends much more time investigating customer usage data, help center feedback, product features and competitors, all while also having greater familiarity with the engineering implementation (to know what’s feasible / reasonable) and greater quantitative skill to determine the implication of evidence in terms of what actions to take.

One lesson I learned a long time ago is to develop product management as a career growth track for engineers who are interested, because the best way to be an effective product manager is first to be an engineer of that product for a long time and leverage the engineering skill set as the primary skill set for product management.

[phlakaton]

I've met great engineers who were great at driving product, and great engineers that were terrible at it, or uninterested in it.

I've met engineers who could invent a whole new product out of sackcloth to solve a customer need the business was only dimly aware of, and engineers who used all their knowledge of customer pain points and data to fritter around the edges of their systems, redesigning this or that but making little material progress in addressing serious issues.

I have little time or patience for "engineers > PMs" arguments or vice versa. You should be a team working together to solve important problems, and you should each recognize and celebrate the skills each of you as individuals brings to the table. If you're not doing that, the problem lies with your team or organization, not the profession as a whole.

[mlthoughts2018]

> “I have little time or patience for "engineers > PMs" arguments or vice versa.”

But some skill sets are more effective at some tasks. You wouldn’t hire a stand-up comic to play quarterback on your football team. There are opportunity costs to doing so that make it a strategic blunder.

It’s really the same, only lesser in degree, when thinking about what sort of background & skill set someone should have when you hire them to manage your product development.

If you narrowly dismiss that consideration by acting like every skill set is equal & every type of person hired into the position of product management can do the job, it’s no less of a strategic blunder.

[phlakaton]

I think we agree?

Part of what I see emerging out of this whole 10x debacle is a critique of what makes a great engineer, and a realization that it means very different things to different people. Moreover, that one person's definition of a great engineer might come with some serious limitations baked in. For example, which keys on their keyboard are likely to wear out prematurely. :-P

The same is no doubt true with product managers. For example, a previous company I worked for divided up PMs into two roles – those who were experts at the business side and decided the larger direction of a product line, and those who were able to turn those directions into unambiguous specs for designers and engineers to produce. Different skillsets, both overlapping with each other and with other positions at the company. Considering those roles separately, you could be a great PM in at least two different ways at that company, but when you start taking leadership, teamwork, and mentorship qualities into account, it's clear that there were even more pathways up the mountain than that.