Paola MataFeb 4, 2023

A thought I had last week: Would anyone hire a software engineer to do anything other than engineering? As highly technical as these skills are, they don’t seem easily transferable.

Yet even the shitty company that’s questioning my technical ability said that I have excellent communication and ability to collaborate, which should really count for much more than it does in this industry. I’ve worked with too many engineers who are noticeably bad at these things.

Show threadMiguel de Icaza ᯅ🍉Feb 4, 2023
@paolamata yes, at Microsoft they have a strong funnel from engineering to Product Management because there is a desperate need for those skills. I imagine this is the case in other large organizations as well
Show threadPaola MataFeb 4, 2023
@Migueldeicaza interesting… do you mean there’s a need for engineering skills within product management, or that there’s a need for more product managers overall?
Show threadMiguel de Icaza ᯅ🍉
@paolamata both. They need PMs, but usually they need them to be very technical: sometimes they prototype, they need to understand the landscape, unblock customers, debug customer problems - it is a wide range of needs. Layoffs aside, Microsoft is trying hard to have a better corporate and people culture, and I enjoyed my time there. People culture is not universally great, and you have pockets of old-style petty folks, but it is actively being worked on
Feb 4, 2023 at 3:33pmIvory for iOS
Show threadMiguel de Icaza ᯅ🍉Feb 4, 2023
@paolamata so I think you could broaden your job search spectrum and consider those roles, good PMs are worth their weight in gold.
Show threadSam GrossFeb 4, 2023
@Migueldeicaza @paolamata Hello, your friendly local very-technically-minded PM here. I concur with Miguel, that there’s absolutely a space for product and user minded engineering leaders to move into product.