“Engineers are expected to have product thinking. So it’s ok for PMs to ship code.” I came across this recently.

Product thinking means understanding why we are building something, what problem it solves, for whom, and how it helps the customers and the business. That background makes them better engineers.

It doesn’t create the expectation that they should also be writing positioning docs, define pricing, or build sales decks.

Shouldn’t the same thing apply in reverse?

A lot of PMs spent many years in engineering before moving into the PM role. They can have in depth conversations with engineers on architecture, constraints, scalability, tradeoffs, etc. That builds their credibility with engineers.

Nobody used to follow that up by saying, “Great, now you should also be shipping code.”

If a PM uses vibe-coding for discovery or prototype an idea, that is great, and useful. But turning that into an organizational expectation of shipping code comes with an opportunity cost.

Time spent shipping code is time not spent elsewhere in the PM role.

What do you think? Share your thoughts on this post on LinkedIn.