Comment by ivan_gammel
3 days ago
I support every single word of this comment. Good product managers are unicorn masters of discovery and delivery who are so rare that they climb up quickly in corporate hierarchy to strategic positions leaving holes in product operations. I have seen products running A/B tests without understanding how they work, designing UI sketches without any knowledge of UX, pushing features to roadmap based on a feedback of a single user etc. Maybe it makes more sense to abandon this role instead of fixing it and split the required skills between UX designers, business analysts, marketers, engineering and project managers etc.
I think the role of Product Manager should be renamed Customer Manager to avoid confusion and conflicts of interest. Some companies like Airbnb tried switching to Program Manager, but that only adds to the confusion.
Right now, the Product Manager is seen as the CEO's delegate, making sure the product follows business strategy, while the Engineering Manager is the CTO's delegate, making sure the product follows technical strategy. One represents business the other represents technology. But IMO since both are building the product together, the title Product Manager creates competition instead of collaboration.
The software needs the customer just as much as the customer needs the software. That's why I think the roles of Engineering Manager and Customer Manager make more sense, working together to build the best product possible. The product isn't managed by one side, it's managed by both.
However, the real problem isn't the role title, it's the qualifications of the person in the role. Companies don't hire lawyers as Engineering Managers, so why do they hire musicians as Product Managers?
>Business strategy
>Customer Manager
That sounds weird. Product managers do not represent customers interests, they represent business value which is not always in making all customers happy. E.g. conversion optimization brings no added value to customers, so it’s not a great name choice. If the role defined as it us now, „product manager“ is the most appropriate name.
It does sound a bit weird, I have to admit. Customer Experience Manager sounds better or just CX Manager.
For me, the title Product Manager sets the wrong expectation, it makes it sound like they own the product, which clashes with other roles. In reality, they don't own the product, they own alignment: customer needs, business goals, and engineering feasibility.
I've heard many YC founders say that the CEO (or CPO) is the only one who truly owns the product, and I agree. The PM should never own it, they are interpreters who take the CEO's vision, combine it with customer insight, and help the team make the right trade-offs.
I have worked with so so many ineffective product managers. The good ones are indeed unicorns.
Even when you have good ones, they can't scale up to all of the things that I'd want them to own, meaning that engineering fills a lot of gaps.
This ends up being uncomfortable and necessary. I'm still learning how to make it work.
The best PMs are like mini-CEOs, and many of them go on to become CPOs. But there's a lot of confusion in the software industry about what the role of a PM should be. For example, I see companies putting too much emphasis on usage metrics, while very few focus on the far more important skill of asking the right questions. PMs look at dashboards to make informed decisions, but most of them aren't even asking the right questions. And they don't know if the questions they're asking are the right ones, because they have no real knowledge of product development, just a bit of experience which is limiting. That's what happens when engineers, designers, or musicians end up in PM roles, reacting to data or using it to validate their own or someone else's assumptions.
The real problem, I believe, starts with companies hiring anyone with people skills as a PM. They don't understand their role and responsibilities, it's common to hear PM say "I own the product." But that's not really true. According to successful founders and CEOs, they are the only ones who truly own the product, and that's an important point for leadership to establish. PMs thinking they own the product creates power struggles with leadership, engineering and design, while a title like "Customer Experience Manager" makes it clear the role is about representing the customer's needs, aligning them with the CEO's vision, and making the right trade-offs.
Business people with knowledge and experience always put the customer at the centre and focus on aligning customer value with business value. In other words, if you're the CEO of Uber and your PM isn't driving a taxi once a week, then, IMO, you hired the wrong person.