[fatfox]

To me, this recurring narrative of product versus engineering is both tiresome and misguided.

In well-run companies, commercial, product, and engineering teams are aligned - overused as the term may be. Any misalignment points to fundamental flaws in company culture. In my experience, this misalignment is what causes so much pain in high-growth companies that introduce managerial roles to a previously founder-led culture - not the product owner role as such.

It's counterproductive to stereotype POs as overbearing taskmasters, or to cast engineers as creators of beautiful but useless code. Such perceptions, if prevalent within a company, should be the primary issue to address. There's certainly features that POs don't enjoy working on but they have to - same for engineers (think about all those compliance features).

I believe POs can serve as a vital bridge between commercial and engineering departments. They clarify how features add customer value, explain business objectives behind projects and help decide what's next on the roadmap. Additionally, they help maintain focus by minimising abrupt directional shifts in the roadmap that could waste resources. And they can weigh in on decisions when they see that engineering teams are already strained by other projects or any business-as-usual work.

In that way, everyone is be enabled to do their best work and the PO is not reduced to the cookie cutter version the author portrays in the article.