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My spicy take on vibe coding for PMs

ddmckinnon.com

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Re: My spicy take on vibe coding for PMs

#51

Post by operatingthetan »

whateveracct wrote: post #47
krater23 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a developer, I don't see the PM as a boss or planner. It's the guy that handles the communication with all the people that don't understand what I say and ensures that they don't annoy me. A PM is not optional when you want to have developers that have time to code and don't get distracted by thirty people that all want something else and all ASAP.

exactly - a PM's job is to sail the high seas of wherever you sit in the org chart and general corporate political landscape.

True, but I think corporate internal politics is changing.

Re: My spicy take on vibe coding for PMs

#52

Post by nimonian »

dmckinno wrote: post #18
ef2k wrote: post #14

My hot take: the dedicated PM role is becoming optional. Engineers already understand feasibility and tradeoffs, and they often end up informing the PM anyway, which usually comes at the cost of meetings and slow decisions. With clear quarterly goals, engineering and design can own product together. They would shape scope, ship in increments, measure, and iterate. So the "product" function still exists, but its not a…

I totally agree (as a PM of ~10 years). I think that all PMs will need to get onto the engineering, design, or research ladder. We are already seeing companies eliminate the function here and there and I expect the trend to continue.

This seems crazy to me. I am a PM and I am busier than ever. People are waking up to the idea that code is cheap and things can change faster now, so deciding _what_ to make and prioritise in the deluge of ideas coming to prod is becoming completely essential.

One thing LLMs don't have is taste. That's on me.

Re: My spicy take on vibe coding for PMs

#54

Post by ef2k »

krater23 wrote: post #35
ef2k wrote: post #14

My hot take: the dedicated PM role is becoming optional. Engineers already understand feasibility and tradeoffs, and they often end up informing the PM anyway, which usually comes at the cost of meetings and slow decisions. With clear quarterly goals, engineering and design can own product together. They would shape scope, ship in increments, measure, and iterate. So the "product" function still exists, but its not a…

As a developer, I don't see the PM as a boss or planner. It's the guy that handles the communication with all the people that don't understand what I say and ensures that they don't annoy me. A PM is not optional when you want to have developers that have time to code and don't get distracted by thirty people that all want something else and all ASAP.

That sounds more like a project or engineering manager role. Work environments obviously vary, and sometimes roles are assumed to counter dysfunction. But the PM here is the product manager, which owns the product direction. The argument is that their role can now venture into building. My comment extends it further that they can actually become the builders, absorbed into engineering and design.

Re: My spicy take on vibe coding for PMs

#55

Post by keeda »

A friend at Meta -- long before the age of LLMs -- got paged at 3am for a site issue. When he found the PR that caused the bug, the testing section for the change simply said:

YOLO!

This was well into the "Move fast with stable infra" era of Meta, but clearly that still encouraged "Move fast and break things" for everything beyond infra.

PMs landing Prod diffs sounds like even more moving fast shall ensue.

Re: My spicy take on vibe coding for PMs

#56

Post by dasil003 »

As much as I recognize that a truly talented product manager is worth their weight in gold, I'd say the average engineer would be much more capable of learning to be an average PM than vice versa.

PM vibe coding a prototype for demonstration purposes? Might be a better use of a designer or engineers time, but okay I could see it being valuable. PM vibe coding something to ship to production? Your title is now engineer and you are responsible for your change, otherwise this is a direct path to destroying the quality of your product and the integrity of its data.

Re: My spicy take on vibe coding for PMs

#57

Post by robotswantdata »

maplethorpe wrote: post #21

Hot take: only PMs need to code now. With Claude 4.6 Opus, the engineer skill set is no longer useful. Why are we hiring people with code writing ability when code writing ability has no value anymore?

If that were true, why would they need a PM ether?

Agents would research and identify requirements on their own, observe customer interactions and monitor for trends. Taste.md downloaded via LoveFrom

Re: My spicy take on vibe coding for PMs

#58

Post by ramon156 »

Bridged7756 wrote: post #33

Our job is done for. We will be shown the door, and everyone will rejoice. Everyone will live in a happy world where you'll doddle a house and Claude will build you a next generation SaaS that makes you millions. Managers will do the job of engineers, by just telling LLMs to make an app or to make money or something. C-suites will have agents doing the jobs of managers, and CEOs will run entire companies with a Claud…

I got laid off at a job where this applied, then at another company got rejected because they cancelled the position altogether to use Agentic Coding by Microsoft instead.

Then I joined a small consultancy that just lets me build however I want. There's no reviews, no sprint reviews, no evaluation. They trust that you work on what is important.

While this is a very messy and unmaintained workflow, it is a lot nicer and I am honestly wondering if Scrum is even necessary when you're only with 4-5 devs. Maybe it is to streamline newcomers? Because it took a bit of time to gather all the project info, but after that it was pretty relaxing.

I don't know, the market has shifted so much that I feel like I should probably be contempt with what I have.

Re: My spicy take on vibe coding for PMs

#59

Post by ef2k »

cmdoptesc wrote: post #40
ef2k wrote: post #14

My hot take: the dedicated PM role is becoming optional. Engineers already understand feasibility and tradeoffs, and they often end up informing the PM anyway, which usually comes at the cost of meetings and slow decisions. With clear quarterly goals, engineering and design can own product together. They would shape scope, ship in increments, measure, and iterate. So the "product" function still exists, but its not a…

I've worked without a product manager before and it was not a pleasant experience. Without a PM: I conducted customer interviews, wrote up product requirement docs (PRD), and iterated with design on the mocks. On top of that, I had to implement the whole feature (while tweaking things with a designer), and also juggling another track of technical work. This would be fine if I was a founding engineer, but I'm not and…

I hear you, a lot of engineers have been there. Things are changing though, roles are evolving and the org chart is starting to flatten.

A couple of things worth separating: strategic direction in most orgs is already handed down from the VP or exec level, the PM is usually executing on that mandate.

Now that coding agents exist, both the PM and the engineer end up prompting a coding agent. So, over time, the roles converge and product ownership just becomes part of building.

Re: My spicy take on vibe coding for PMs

#60

Post by wiseowise »

Bridged7756 wrote: post #33

Our job is done for. We will be shown the door, and everyone will rejoice. Everyone will live in a happy world where you'll doddle a house and Claude will build you a next generation SaaS that makes you millions. Managers will do the job of engineers, by just telling LLMs to make an app or to make money or something. C-suites will have agents doing the jobs of managers, and CEOs will run entire companies with a Claud…

Using just one $200 Claude subscription? What is that? 2024? Managers? Get on my level, son. It’ll be one man unicorns, new breed of CEOs running army of openclaws. I’ll have you fucking know that I’ve just launched “build me a next unicorn” prompt and 1000 agents have been running nonstop for a week. See me at the top of the AngelList, chump. Though I’ve probably won’t see you while you collect your unemployment check and food stamps.
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