The things engineers are desperate for PMs to understand | Camille Fournier (author of “The Manager’s Path,” ex-CTO at Rent the Runway)
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What does Camille’s background tell us about her expertise in engineering leadership?
I'm curious what it is that PMs do that annoy engineers most.
Reporting credit. PMs, they tend to be the front-facing person for initiative. Engineers sometimes think that they don't get the credit for their work because the PM takes all the glory and all the credit for the project that they really worked very hard on. I
find the best PMs are the ones that talk the least and encourage other people to do the presenting.
The next thing that engineers really get annoyed about with VMs when they just don't understand the details and act like they don't matter. It just shows a real lack of empathy for the work that engineers are doing. And I think it really can be very off putting.
Is there any insight you can give about what people maybe miss about the motivation of engineers, what gets them excited?
A lot of people assume that engineers just write code and don't underestimate the ability for your engineers to want to understand the business problem, want to understand the customer problem. I think the product managers that have done the best, they're not threatened by other people having ideas.
Today, my guest is Camille Fournier. Camille is one of the most respected technology executives in tech and the author of The Manager's Path, which many consider the definitive guide for navigating your career and moving into management. Over the course of her career, she was CTO of Rent The Runway, VP of Technology at Goldman Sachs, Global Head of Engineering and Architecture at JP Morgan Chase, and head of platform engineering at Two Sigma. She's also releasing a New book later this year called Platform Engineering, a Guide for Technical, Product and People Leaders, which you can actually pre-order today, and we get into this topic in the latter half of the conversation. We also dig into what PMs do that most annoys engineers and how to stop doing these things, why major rewrites are often a trap, why you may want to be doing fewer one-on-ones, what most surprises people when they become a manager, and some really useful heuristics.
For how long you should stay in IC before you make the leap into management, and tons more. This episode covers a lot of ground and will help you think about management, platform teams, team culture, and the PM and End relationship in a whole new way. If you enjoy this podcast, don't forget to subscribe and follow it in your favorite podcasting app or YouTube. It's the best way to avoid missing future episodes and helps the podcast tremendously. With that, I bring you Camille Fournier. Camille, thank you so much for being here. Welcome to the podcast.
Thank you so much for having me.
It's my pleasure. I want to start by asking you a question that is on the minds of a lot of product managers is how to be less annoying as a product manager. I know you work with a lot of engineers over time. I'm curious what it is that PMs do that annoy engineers most and how can PM stop doing that?
I would say there are a few things that PMs do that annoy engineers. And to be clear, I am sure that engineers annoy PM just as much. So I know I realize this is a two way street. So I think there's some things that are really easy to fix and some things that are maybe a little bit harder. So the easy things to fix are hoarding credit. Sometimes I think PMs, because they're they tend to be the front facing person for initiatives, they're talking to customers, they're talking to the executive team, whatever. Engineers sometimes think that they don't get the credit for their work because the PM sort of takes all the glory and all the credit for the project that that they really kind of worked very hard on, right?
Um so Making every effort to be kind of credit sharing and inclusive of the engineering team and giving them the opportunity to speak about their contributions when it makes sense. I think those are all things that PMs can do to avoid that kind of that that what I consider kind of a pretty easy annoyance, right? Just like don't forward all the credit. This is not just you, right?
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What does Camille’s background tell us about her expertise in engineering leadership?
0:00–13:07
2
Why do product managers often annoy engineers and how can they stop doing it?
13:07–25:49
3
How does the “middle‑person” problem affect communication between PMs and engineers?
25:49–37:24
4
Why are major rewrites considered a trap and what’s a better approach?
37:24–47:01
5
What’s the case for having fewer one‑on‑one meetings as an engineering manager?
47:01–56:54
6
What surprising challenges do engineers face when moving from IC to management?
56:54–1:10:31
7
How can teams effectively work with platform teams and what makes a platform team successful?
1:10:31–1:19:03
8
What strategies create a high‑performance work culture without overworking?
1:19:03–1:23:12
Speakers
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