I’ve been noticing something strange in tech lately – product managers seem to be disappearing faster than free snacks at a startup. Meanwhile, engineering teams appear relatively stable. What’s going on here? Is this some kind of corporate magic trick?
Let’s start with the obvious: the economic environment has shifted dramatically. When money was cheap and growth was the only metric that mattered, companies hired product managers like they were going out of style. Now? Not so much. According to Layoffs.fyi data, product roles have been disproportionately affected in recent tech layoffs compared to engineering positions.
But there’s more to this story than just economic cycles. The very nature of product management is changing. Remember when product managers were supposed to be the “CEOs of their products”? That romantic notion is colliding with reality. In many organizations, product management has become a layer of bureaucracy rather than a driver of innovation.
Here’s where The Qgenius Golden Rules of Product Development become relevant. The principle of 「from niche markets, starting with user pain points」 suggests that successful products emerge from deep understanding of specific user needs. But too many product managers have become generalists, disconnected from the actual users they’re supposed to serve.
Engineering teams, on the other hand, have maintained their relevance because they’re closer to the actual work of building. They’re the ones implementing solutions, working with new technologies, and dealing with real technical constraints. As one engineering director told me recently: 「We can survive without product managers telling us what to build, but they can’t survive without us actually building anything.」
Another factor? The rise of platform products and technical product management. Companies like Stripe, Twilio, and AWS have shown that deeply technical products often require product managers who understand the technology at an engineering level. This has created a natural selection pressure – product managers who can’t speak engineering are becoming less valuable.
But let’s not write the obituary for product management just yet. The best product managers I know are adapting. They’re becoming more technical, more data-driven, and more focused on specific domains. They’re embracing the Qgenius principle that 「what determines user groups and market segments is mental models」 – understanding not just what users do, but how they think.
The real question isn’t whether we need product managers, but what kind of product managers we need. Do we need more generalists who can write pretty PRDs, or specialists who understand specific technologies and user mental models? The market seems to be voting for the latter.
What do you think? Is product management becoming obsolete, or is it just evolving into something new and potentially more valuable?