your engineering background sabotages your product career in...

88 views Apr 23, 2025 ~2 min read

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your engineering background sabotages your product career in predictable ways.

focusing on tech details, ignoring complex ideas, and favoring architecture over user needs leads to failure.

i've developed a system to transform engineers into effective product leaders. 🧵👇

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1/ The biggest trap: thinking you need to solve everything

Your engineering brain wants to jump straight to HOW
- How to implement it
- How to optimize it
- How to scale it

But great PMs spend 80% of their time on WHAT and WHY

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2/ "But my eng team expects technical solutions from me!"

This is where most technical PMs get stuck. You feel pressure to prove your technical worth.

Reality: Engineers respect PMs who bring clarity about the problem more than those who dive into implementation details

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3/ Common objection: "If I don't specify the solution, we'll build the wrong thing!"

Truth: Over-specifying actually increases that risk

Instead:
- Define clear success metrics
- Document constraints
- Let the team explore solutions
- Guide with tradeoff discussions

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4/ "My team moves faster when I give them the solution"

Short term: Yes
Long term: You're killing team ownership & creativity

What to do instead:
- Share context, not solutions
- Ask probing questions
- Let them surprise you with better approaches
- Build technical credibility through understanding, not directing

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5/ The hardest part: fighting your own instincts

Your brain will scream "I know exactly how to build this!"

Stop. Ask these questions first:
- What problem are we solving?
- Who has this problem?
- How do we know it's real?
- What happens if we do nothing?

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6/ "But I was hired for my technical expertise!"

Yes, but not to be the solution architect

Your technical background helps you:
- Understand feasibility
- Spot technical risks early
- Speak eng's language
- Challenge estimates intelligently

Not to design the solution

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7/ Here's what worked for me:

- Force yourself to write the PRD without ANY technical solutions for the first draft
- Do customer interviews before opening your IDE
- Set a "24-hour rule" before proposing solutions
- Practice saying "What do you think we should do?"

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8/ The transformation happened when I started measuring different things:

Old metrics:
- Technical elegance
- Implementation speed
- Feature completeness

New metrics:
- Customer problem solved
- Team ownership
- Long-term maintainability

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9/ Common fear: "What if the team builds something that's technically suboptimal?"

Better question: "What if we build something technically perfect that solves the wrong problem?"

Let the team own the technical decisions. Your job is to ensure they're solving the right problem.

10/ Tools that helped me break free:

- Opportunity Solution Trees
- Problem statement templates
- JTBD interviews

I've collected these + more PM techniques and frameworks in prodmgmt.world

Follow @nurijanian for more PM insights 🤘🏼

your engineering background sabotages your product career in...

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