Product managers get blamed for everything at work
15 posts across 4 communities in the last 90 days; 80% from r/ProductManagement.
“It’s all slop though. Engineers are writing slop PRDs to get their thing built. PMs are writing vibe coded slop to get around engineering and get their thing built [re: The problem with 2026 product management...]”
“It's a whole job. Engineers are the last people you ever want to put in charge of "what people need." Even if they're other engineers who purportedly have the same problem. I don't know how to address priority routing in a complex multi-service stack. Engineers don't know how to…”
“So the thing is, why do you need developers if product managers can do it themselves? Engineers suck at talking to users cause they see every problem as something that should be solved and don’t ever stop to think why or even if it should be solved. I think you maybe have your…”
Product managers frequently face undue blame for issues outside their control, including technical failures, misaligned priorities, or cross-team conflicts. This erodes trust and creates a toxic work environment.
SOURCES (16)
“I completely disagree with the narrative that "PMs only need to understand the business, translate business problems into engineering requirements, and maintain good communication with developers." If you don't even understand the basics—such as frontend-backend decoupling, client-server separation, data flows, and basic web architecture—how can…”
“It’s all slop though. Engineers are writing slop PRDs to get their thing built. PMs are writing vibe coded slop to get around engineering and get their thing built [re: The problem with 2026 product management...]”
“It's a whole job. Engineers are the last people you ever want to put in charge of "what people need." Even if they're other engineers who purportedly have the same problem. I don't know how to address priority routing in a complex multi-service stack. Engineers don't know how to incorporate proximity-comfort threshold context into a product roadmap as an essential feature. How would I know about the handler requests? I never studied it. How would they know about semanti”
“I don’t even know what an Engineer is or what a PM is anymore. So… !DIV/0 I guess?”
“I deal with the goddamn customers so the engineers don’t have to! I have people skills! I am good at dealing with people! Can’t you understand that? What the hell is wrong with you people!”
“Difference between Product Manager and Product owner? Nobody ever taught me the difference between: Team Lead, Line Manager, Project Manager, Scrum Master, Delivery Manager, Change Manager and the above... I just followed along what other people did when interfacing with them :D”
“Feel happen when someone say this . i always heard that MBA is a must to become a PM”
“Yeah, those answers are mostly for the Product Management roles, except if there are technical dependencies and build cost estimates that engineering is the expert on, or if the product crosses different lines of business (cross-team dependencies) that require input and collaboration among other PM resources. As far as the Project plan, are they wanting first a skeleton framework partially built upon what you can glean from a signed Scope of work document, Requirements specification which should”
“So the thing is, why do you need developers if product managers can do it themselves? Engineers suck at talking to users cause they see every problem as something that should be solved and don’t ever stop to think why or even if it should be solved. I think you maybe have your thinking backwards cause it sounds like your developers are running out of things to do, not product management. Also I don’t understand what you mean about refinement. In doing my own personal projects, I refine things wi”
“At some point, someone from leadership is going to notice/care that your engineering group isn’t producing anything much of value. And then engineering is going to point the finger at product and say that ~you~ never gave them good enough/final requirements to work on. So yes, I’d worry about getting something shipped that I can tell a good story about in the next quarter or two.”
“Communication is 90% of the job. I’ve seen a lot of engineers fail because they continue to speak like an engineer. They need to learn an entirely new way of speaking. Saying the problem out loud and why it is important doesn’t magically check the box on stakeholder and team member management.”
“Product management isn’t about coming up with a solution, it’s about making sure you are solving the right problem.”
“Generally no, I try to show empathy to the engineering and leadership team even when they are fucking morons or cause a fuckup. I will pick some battles though, whether that’s advocating for something I feel strongly about or needing to instill a real sense of urgency to that others don’t seem to understand. It works for me because I’m not often hard skinned/ruthless so when it comes through, people notice and listen… haha. I don’t think it’s a mental health concern for everyone, when I’m off th”
“Starting not to be okay with this. Not when I am seeing things engineers miss ot are being political about.”
“Hi all, A friend just asked me whether I can recommend him a few product managers for his company. I started to think, and I can honestly only remember 2 good product managers in over 20 years: one ex-IBM who was promptly fired after finishing the project we worked on and was dubbed "the best ran and executed software project I've seen" by the CTO (the PM was fired by some other middle-manager) one contractor who was promptly fired by the new CTO who felt threatened) Then, there”