[throwaway2037]

The difference? Fresh grads are much cheaper than experienced PMs. I always say: Don't hire PMs; hire better devs (who, when necessary, can wear the hat of a PM). To be clear: My example is specifically talking about internal software development, and I have seen this strategy work at multiple companies. Creating an external product for B2B or B2C is very different.

[gmueckl]

Internal SW dev can work with a lot less overhead and setting up direct communication between users and developers is reasonably simple. There is usually a 1:1 relationship between user roles and developers.

Published software ideally has many, many more licensees and you absolutely need rigid communication channels with various go-betweens (PM, marketing, support). Direct communication between devs and customers wastes too much of the developers' time. Especially the PM role becomes extremely important for product quality then. In the extreme, the product can only be as good as its PM.

[lupire]

Devs are expensive, and devs who can PM are incredibly expensive.

[throwaway2037]

You are missing the point: What generates higher ROI: (1) dev + PM (separate people) or (2) highly skilled dev who can periodically act as PM? In my experience, it is always (2). Any time that I hear a senior manager complaining about "expensive devs", I always ask them: "How do you balance cost and quality?" Most of them are stunned by this question and give a bullshit answer. The truth: Almost all orgs are better to hire far fewer devs who are very high quality, versus many devs who are lower quality. I never worked for Amazon AWS but the "pizza-sized" team thing is real -- from experience.