We’ve talked about How To Be A PM That Engineers Don’t Hate, now let’s talk about it in the other direction.

Stay Saasy's platform is a resource for software-as-a-service (SaaS) professionals, offering insights into SaaS business models, subscription pricing strategies, and customer retention tactics. Through articles, case studies, and industry analysis, Stay Saasy offers insights into SaaS marketing techniques, sales funnel optimization, and customer success practices. Readers can learn about SaaS product management, user onboarding experiences, and churn reduction strategies to build and grow successful SaaS businesses.

Stay SaaSy

To be an engineer that PMs don't hate: Be responsible with the power of shipping code. Don’t make Product Management your QA team or your project manager. Don't mistake technical knowledge for intelligence. Explain the value of tech debt in a way that is easy to understand.

How To Be An Engineer That PMs Don't Hate

Be responsible with the power of shipping code

Don’t make Product Management your QA team or Project Manager

Don’t team up on PM (they’re outnumbered on teams)

Don’t mistake technical knowledge for intelligence (don’t be an asshole)

Explain the value of tech debt in a way that is easy to understand

how about the flipside? How to be a PM that Engineers don’t hate? ie. Try and learn some technical knowledge so you actually have an idea of what engineers are doing. There are many PMs who have 0 technical knowledge of which I’d argue domain knowledge is absolutely required if you are a “manager”. How do you “manage” people when you don’t understand a single thing they are doing? I remember a “project” manager trying to “manage” my tickets when she had zero knowledge of anything technical, because she came from finance department, and no way of properly pointing tickets, so i can skew the points as much as I want if I wanted.
Last PM told me to “build an app that does” this, with 0 description of who the users are, what problems I’m trying to solve.
PMs can be just as much of a pain as an Engineer.

Maybe if the PMs are in the business of hating their coworkers for any reason, HR should advise they go see someone to talk out the issues they are bringing with them to work. In today’s climate, having fuming hatred at work seems like a tragedy in the making and something the fuming individuals probably need to deal with internally before they loose control of their unnecessary rage. I find the practice of yoga (the real thing, not just asana sequences aka stretching) and having a few decent distractions unrelated to work very helpful as is the meditative and intellectual sides of yoga. Art is a nice conduit as well and having a dog who is well-trained (that helped make me feel like I had agency over the world) and is always willing to walk with me to the grocery store and bring the groceries back in a hand cart as physical work really helps restore peace of mind. Just saying, no reason to hate our coworkers really, we are also flawed human beings who need forgiveness for our imperfections.

It’s 2023, why are people not centering their text? It hurts to read on a 4k monitor

All these behaviors have their reasons, a good PM can do the following to mitigate these.
<ol>
<li>Give clear and simple specs so engineer have a clear spec, so you don’t have to negotiate on what to build and what not after the task is going on.</li>
<li>A good spec can greatly reduce the need for QA and bugs. When given clear spec, engineers don’t have to fill the gap themselves, thus improve their outcome.</li>
<li>Build relationship with the team. So you know what slows them down, what will boost them, what is the incentive. There are many positive ways to encourage the team other than blame.</li>
<li>If your team member is on the team, they must be on the team for a good reason. RESPECT THAT, and think what can be improved.</li>
<li>The most efficient way to communicate is to use your TA’s language.</li>
</ol>
Last of all, TAKE RESPONSIBILITY.
As a product manager, your role is to ensure the success of the product. Anything that can improve product is what PMs should give efforts in.