In technical product management, deep expertise serves a dual purpose. It's not just about understanding the product; it's a critical tool for building credibility with the engineering team. Engineers are more likely to trust and follow the direction of a PM they respect technically, making this a crucial element of effective leadership.
Related Insights
A product manager is ready for leadership not just by mastering their domain, but by demonstrating three key traits: understanding how all parts of the platform connect, being effective in customer-facing roles (sales, roadmap talks), and proactively building cross-team relationships.
A simple, powerful way for a PM to engage with the technical side is to propose a periodic meeting to review third-party libraries and their updates. This keeps the team aware of new features, shows strategic technical thinking, and builds respect with engineering—a practice almost no companies do.
The core job of a Product Manager is not writing specs or talking to press; it's a leadership role. Success means getting a product to market that wins. This requires influencing engineering, marketing, and sales without any formal authority, making it the ultimate training ground for real leadership.
The best leaders don't just stay high-level. They retain the ability to dive deep into technical details to solve critical problems. As shown by Apple's SVP of Software, this hands-on capability builds respect and leads to better outcomes, challenging the 'empower and get out of the way' mantra.
Building your own product forces you to confront technical realities like database migrations and architectural trade-offs. This firsthand experience provides deep empathy for engineering challenges, which in turn builds crucial credibility and improves collaboration with development teams.
To get product management buy-in for technical initiatives like refactoring or scaling, engineering leadership is responsible for translating the work into clear business or customer value. Instead of just stating the technical need, explain how it enables faster feature development or access to a larger customer base.
Beyond speaking the same language as developers, an engineering background provides three critical PM skills: understanding architectural trade-offs to build trust, applying systems thinking to break down complex problems into achievable parts, and using root-cause analysis to look beyond user symptoms.
When hiring for the C-suite, the importance of domain expertise varies by role. For Chief Product Officers, a deep passion and knowledge of the problem space is critical for setting vision. For engineering leaders (CTOs/VPs), specific domain experience is less important than relevant tech stack knowledge and transformation skills.
When leading functions outside your core expertise (e.g., product leading tech and data), credibility cannot come from having answers. Instead, it's built by consistently asking open-ended questions to deeply understand the team's challenges. This approach prevents solutionizing and fosters trust.
PMs at founder-led startups often fail to gain influence by jumping straight to strategy. The key is to first earn deep credibility by mastering the product, its customers, and the business. Only after you've demonstrated this command will a founder trust your strategic instincts. Don't skip the tactical work of earning your seat at the table.
