Comment by robviren | Hacker News Reader

Comment by robviren | Hacker News Reader

Everywhere I have been a PM usually has an engineering team thoroughly battered by poor management, constantly shifting requirements, and is so near burnout I can feel it. I place no blame on engineering giving me inflated timelines when culture sucks. PM positions opening up seem to correlate with problems between the business and engineering. Take true ownership and watch how quick you can get a better relationship with engineering.

It's my job to take true ownership by accepting responsibility for outcomes, pushing back on the business for their short sightedness, and to attempt to drive an environment where respect for the trade of engineering exists. I completely understand the bad rap PMs get on HN. It always feels like I am working for the death star half the time. Though I am always glad when I can act as a blame sponge and slowly turn toxicity around. If you constantly throw engineering under the bus for management problems you are a product manager by name only.

I’m a dev and I’m sympathetic to PMs. In the end the constant change in requirements doesn’t come from them, but from the business. And while I appreciate some don’t do the bare minimum pushback on absurd requirements/demands, I also understand that in the end their career is tied to what the business think of them, not the devs they manage. It’s just the way it is.

> not the devs they manage

This is a big part of the problem; PMs should be managing the product, not managing developers, though it almost always ends up being the latter. The same goes for project managers, who should be managing the project, not the developers.

Though PMs should be working closely with developers, the idea that developers are subordinate to them is pretty silly when, ultimately, their incentives are heavily weighed towards siding with product owners and upper management in general. The role of PM doesn't suggest any sort of qualification for managing developers, thus it makes more sense for developers to be managed by lead or staff developers who report to directors of technology or product owners. Unfortunately, this can be dysfunctional because roles like "lead" are often given to those who don't have good leadership or management skills. However, it still makes more sense that developers are lead by developers who answer to whomever owns the product. When you add a PM in the middle, they often act more as a blame-diffuser when their actual job should be like an interface between developers and the business, and to provide some amount of defense for the developers they supposedly manage.

I would really like to work in a team with someone like you in it.

I recently had a failing team put under me. They all have what I would consider PTSD. I often see the opinion that leadership doesn't matter, but poor leadership is one of the main of causes failing teams.

> Everywhere I have been a PM

Out of curiosity, did the P in your role stand for "product" or "project"?

I wish TFA also would have specified this...

Knowing it would barely help you. Both titles are amongst the most overused in the industry. They can mean widely different things in different companies.

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