[ef2k]

My hot take: the dedicated PM role is becoming optional. Engineers already understand feasibility and tradeoffs, and they often end up informing the PM anyway, which usually comes at the cost of meetings and slow decisions. With clear quarterly goals, engineering and design can own product together. They would shape scope, ship in increments, measure, and iterate. So the "product" function still exists, but its not a separate PM attached to it.

[cmdoptesc]

I've worked without a product manager before and it was not a pleasant experience.

Without a PM: I conducted customer interviews, wrote up product requirement docs (PRD), and iterated with design on the mocks. On top of that, I had to implement the whole feature (while tweaking things with a designer), and also juggling another track of technical work.

This would be fine if I was a founding engineer, but I'm not and wasn't being compensated enough for the extra workload. And sure, now with LLMs the coding portion would be smaller, but there would still a lot of context switching and one might not able to do technical deep dives into things with all the meetings. All those meetings.

So don't overlook your PM.

[ef2k]

I hear you, a lot of engineers have been there. Things are changing though, roles are evolving and the org chart is starting to flatten.

A couple of things worth separating: strategic direction in most orgs is already handed down from the VP or exec level, the PM is usually executing on that mandate.

Now that coding agents exist, both the PM and the engineer end up prompting a coding agent. So, over time, the roles converge and product ownership just becomes part of building.

[coffeefirst]

So… I can do it all. Product manage, code, lead a team, even be my own designer in a pinch.

But that’s far too much work and context switching for one person. Someone will try, but the reason you tend to build teams of specialists is to let people focus even when they can do lots of different things.

[fud101]

From what i've read, tech is over represented by folks on the spectrum who struggle with focus and multitasking. I see this new trend where you are being asked to increasingly do more and more to be an especially difficult burden to bear for those who self select for careers in programming.

[rrgok]

Hey you forget sales and marketing. Just do that also.

[coffeefirst]

Luckily I suck at that!

[patates]

Yeah that's why we're replacing you with someone who generated a claude skill which does that! /s

[bluefirebrand]

Ah yes, but now with AI it's going to be easy*

* Not easy at all, but too bad. We worship at the altar of productivity and either you're our blood sacrifice or you're unemployed

[bayarearefugee]

My hotter take: All 3 of the engineer, PM and designer will all assume the other 2 are optional, in reality all 3 and the entire company they work for will be optional in most cases.

[operatingthetan]

You just need one of them. It's probably the engineer.

[badgersnake]

Good PMs are not optional. Most PMs are.

[lelanthran]

How are you defining optional?

Companies without any product managers, much less good ones, are putting out profitable products all the time.

[veggieroll]

> With clear quarterly goals

This requires a quality of product/program management and upper management buy-in that is rare in my experience.

The dynamic I've experienced is upper management giving the same incompetent teams projects over and over, having month after month of meetings with no deliveries and no real progress on the deliverable, and then eventually having to scramble and find someone else who can actually accomplish their goals.

Either that or so many things are broken that there's no possible way to prioritize beyond a few weeks because you can't let attention dip from any one spinning plate for too long or it'll fall.

[dmckinno]

I totally agree (as a PM of ~10 years).

I think that all PMs will need to get onto the engineering, design, or research ladder. We are already seeing companies eliminate the function here and there and I expect the trend to continue.

[nimonian]

This seems crazy to me. I am a PM and I am busier than ever. People are waking up to the idea that code is cheap and things can change faster now, so deciding _what_ to make and prioritise in the deluge of ideas coming to prod is becoming completely essential.

One thing LLMs don't have is taste. That's on me.

[latentsea]

They don't seem to have taste when it comes to engineering either, but tbh 'taste' is a computable function, and will eventually be learned.

[intelVISA]

Agreed though I'm biased.

It will be interesting as orgs flatten to see what will keep all the remaining "superhuman AI-powered all-in-one" employees from just making their own shop.

[krater23]

As a developer, I don't see the PM as a boss or planner. It's the guy that handles the communication with all the people that don't understand what I say and ensures that they don't annoy me.

A PM is not optional when you want to have developers that have time to code and don't get distracted by thirty people that all want something else and all ASAP.

[ef2k]

That sounds more like a project or engineering manager role. Work environments obviously vary, and sometimes roles are assumed to counter dysfunction. But the PM here is the product manager, which owns the product direction. The argument is that their role can now venture into building. My comment extends it further that they can actually become the builders, absorbed into engineering and design.

[whateveracct]

exactly - a PM's job is to sail the high seas of wherever you sit in the org chart and general corporate political landscape.

[operatingthetan]

True, but I think corporate internal politics is changing.