Engineer to Product Manager

I've personally had to go through a very hard pivot having been a very passionate engineer in my early days. Here's a quick summary of my journey on this edition of "Long story short".

There are quite a few new skills that you need to acquire to become a good product manager. But journey from an Engineer to a Product Manager is one of 'Unlearning' first.

Product First, Product Second and Product Third, then Technology

This is the one thing that is easiest on paper but hardest to implement in real life. Coming from an engineering background, you come with the baggage of knowledge. You know the possibility and your product decisions are shaped by possibility or existence of technology rather than the needs of your consumers. One of the ways to get over this bias is to write down your thought process and then read it again and again till you're sure that you've not taken an 'Engineer biased' call.

Wrong kind of empathy is surest way to kill a product

If you're growing out of an engineering organization, you're sure to have a few friends who still are exploring the depths of engineering. There's a good chance that they're your pillars that actually deliver the product while you define what needs to be done. You know the pain. You've been there. So sometimes you think twice before asking the hard questions. You trust that what they're doing is the best that can be done. You put their emotions over the needs of the product, the needs of the customer. What you're slowly doing is building mediocrity in the system. A healthy tension backed by a mutual trust between a Product Manager and an Engineer is backbone of a good product.

Sometimes you need to get out of excel sheets

As an engineer, you're used to dealing with certainty more often that not. Physics is dependable. Maths is quite exact. Customer are humans. By their nature, they're irrational. A lot of times, it's quite hard to define and deliver exactness on a consumer need. First few decisions that you take on account of not having any data are your growth spurts. By all means, try and find the right data to prove your hypotheses. But all said and done as my old boss used to say, "Sometimes, you just need to get out of excel sheets"

In Conclusion

Transitioning from an engineer to a product manager isn't just about acquiring new skills—it's about shedding old instincts. The natural tendency to prioritize technology over the problem, the urge to shield engineering teams from discomfort, and the over-reliance on data for every decision can all hold you back from building great product. Give some time to this unlearning process and embrace the new path of unending ambiguity!