Before anything else: thank you.
The work you do, aligning stakeholders, maintaining a relationship with users, finding new opportunities and communicating them is rarely easy and often invisible. It’s the kind of effort that can be underestimated from the outside. But we see it. And we respect it.
As product engineers, we’re sharing the manifesto not as a critique of your role, but as a challenge to ourselves. We want to step up. Not just write the code, but understand the customer. Not just deliver features, but take responsibility for outcomes.
Still, we know that can come across the wrong way. The things we post: the manifesto, the bold claims, the challenges to not blindly follow roadmaps created by PMs can read like they’re aimed at you. But the truth is, we’re mostly talking to ourselves. Encouraging each other to break old habits and move beyond being passive implementers.
We want to be useful upstream. We want to sharpen the problem definition. Bring context from past experiments. Understand your goals and constraints. Help shape what we’re building before it’s locked in. Not because we think we know better—but because we care deeply about getting it right.
However, one of the realities we often see is that having a "manager" title can sometimes create an implicit hierarchy within the team. This can unintentionally lead to a dynamic where engineers are seen primarily as executors of specifications, rather than as creative contributors to the product vision.
The manifesto isn't about diminishing the importance of product management or suggesting that engineers should take over your role. Rather, it's about fostering a space where engineers can engage more deeply with the product vision, contribute ideas, and help bring even more innovative solutions to life. We see this as a way to strengthen our collaboration, not replace it.
So don’t let us off the hook. Treat us as peers. Hold us accountable when we overstep or get lost in abstraction. And when we ask questions “What’s the problem? For who? Why now?” see it for what it is: a desire to think with you, not just follow.
Product engineering is a team sport. We’re here to play it with you.
Sincerely,
Your engineer colleague