[habosa]

It seems like every PM has a slightly different job from every other PM, even at the same company. Across companies there's absolutely no comparison.

What I've noticed at Google is that through a combination of personality and bureaucratic convenience, the PMs have taken over completely. I like the PMs I work with so this is not necessarily a bad thing, but I don't think it was intentional. When we're trying to launch a feature or make a big product change everyone just accepts that the PMs word on if/when we will do it is law. If we disagree with the PM we simply escalate to a more senior PM. I don't think it was meant to be this way, but nobody else is empowered to make these kinds of decisions so it falls to the PMs by default. Plus they tend to be very well connected across the company because they work with everyone, so they can make things happen.

[bothra90]

The fact that PMs are empowered to be "CEOs" of their product probably doesn't help. In my mind, transparency in the 2-way communication between PMs and engineers is key. Engineers need to be motivated by the "why", but PMs also need to understand why an engineer might want to, to quote from the article, "spend months refactoring an app to make it “right”".