What do engineers need/expect from a product manager?

Question

What do engineers need/expect from a product manager?

Asked at Google over a year ago

635 views

Asked at

635 views

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Abhijeet Das · Answer 1 · 2025-07-05T19:37:59+0000

First and foremost - Clarity on “Why” and “What” — Not Just “When”

Engineers expect the PM to:

Clearly explain the problem, customer pain, and business context.
Define outcomes, not just features or tasks.
Prioritize what truly matters, not everything that’s possible.

Realistic Planning & Honest Trade-offs

Engineers want a PM who:

Listens to technical constraints.
Don't over promise to stakeholders.
Pushes back on scope creep and aligns on trade-offs together.

Decision-Making That’s Data-Informed, Not Personal

Engineers appreciate a PM who:

Uses data, user feedback, and metrics to make decisions.
Don't just say “Because leadership wants it” or “That’s my call.”

Engineers are motivated when they feel the solution has a measurable impact, not when it feels like the PM is guessing or taking credit.

Unblocking and Shielding

PMs should remove noise so engineers can build:

Clarify ambiguous requirements.
Get quick answers from ops, legal, design, etc.
Push back on distractions during a sprint

Mutual Respect and Ownership

Engineers expect to be respected as product partners, not ticket takers:

Involve them in ideation, especially for technical or UX-heavy features.
Share customer feedback and celebrate impact, not just deadlines.

@Nag · Answer 2 · 2021-09-14T17:53:28+0000

@Nag

Platinum PM

Sep 14, 2021

1) Getting involved earlier in the product lifecycle

2) Understanding the overall vision of the product, blue print, strategy, roadmap etc.

3) Having a say in feature prioritization with respect to technical manifestation, implementation cost and complexity

4) Having the product manager talk on behalf of the entire team while in discussions with business stakeholders

5) Develop trust and transparency between the entire team

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Eli Marcus

Platinum PM

Sep 14, 2021

When you are asked a behavioral question. I generally believe that you should tell about your experience rather than just provide a framework.

In your response you provide a framework for building a relationship with engineering (involve engineering early, make sure engineering understand the overall vision, have a say in prioritization, have the PM represent their needs and accomplishments to managements and trust.

At this point a complete answer would be … Let me tell you about how I applied or developed this framework with my engineering team. Then answer the question using the STAR framework Situation, Task, Action, Results.

Template

I believe that engineers need / expect (X and Y) from a product manager. In my current role we had the following situation (provide background). Within that context we needed to accomplish (this task). I worked with my engineering team with the following (actions). Together we accomplished these (results).

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