Any engineer that moves away from engineering never really enjoyed or "got it" anyway, by using the "I used to be an engineer!" tag you're just trying to score extra points. It doesn't make your argument more compelling, cmv.
Check my profile. I was an engineer for a long time, and I enjoyed it. Been writing code in a professional capacity for multiple decades.
I became a PM because I wanted a new challenge while not being totally divorced from making things. It's a harder job, in multiple ways, and one of the things that makes it hard is convincing (mostly junior) engineers that I know what I'm talking about. There are many days when I want nothing more than to go back to the simple, closed-form world of writing code. Compared to dealing with people, even the hardest coding problem is straightforward.
I probably shouldn't be replying, but I've noticed too many coders hearing "PM" and flipping the idiot bit. I want to do something to fight back against that trend.
It's good not to make assumptions about other people.
Thank you for your pushback, seriously. This "us vs them" mentality, especially applied to PMs, is outright toxic and counterproductive.
I was blessed to be able to build a team of developers who understand business value and prioritise accordingly, who like building things for others and not just a shrine to their intellect [1], and I wouldn't want to have it any other way. It's amazing to work in a team where most challenges are product and market challenges, and the rest is just pragmatic technical considerations. The world people describe in this thread sounds like a self-perpetuating hellhole.
[1] although arguably it's much harder to build something simple but good enough and compatible with future changes
"I hate this 'us vs them' mentality, but I need to keep my developers in check and make sure they prioritise business value accordingly"
Is exactly the kind of paternalistic nonsense that developers have to endure.
PMs exist to shield us from the shit. I work with a great one who does this, trusts the team and lets us get on with it without introducing ridiculous process, but the vast, vast majority of PMs I've had to work with are utter garbage.
What do you mean "keep in check"? In my experience people caring about the product and value that it brings to the world and having real visible impact on it don't need "keeping in check". It is important to screen for that during interviews, yes, and it won't work in feature factories and bullshit adtech that no one actually cares about, but when it's smart people in a small team working on something generally good for the world it just happens on its own. There is nothing paternalistic about it.
Maybe when it's a large dysfunctional org, yes. Ideally PMs exist to facilitate, not to "shield".
