All Things Product with Teresa and Petra

Boundaries Between Product & Engineering

Listen Later

In this episode, you’ll hear:

  • Why product managers shouldn’t own bug tracking, tech debt, or architecture decisions
  • How blurred boundaries between product and engineering lead to burnout and quality issues
  • The difference between being responsible for a product and owning another team’s work
  • How legacy IT and project-based mindsets still shape modern product orgs
  • Why treating engineers as “order takers” breaks down in evergreen product environments
  • What strong engineering leadership should own (and why that matters)
  • When it does make sense for product to step in—especially around communication and coordination

    • Key ideas worth calling out:

    • The product trio owns the “what”; engineering owns the “how”
    • Product managers are not people managers for engineers—and shouldn’t be accountable for engineering quality
    • If quality is a problem, the solution is escalating and fixing the system, not managing individual bugs
    • Skilled engineering teams naturally push back when boundaries are crossed—and that’s a good thing
    • Removing the PM as a middleman creates better flow and clearer ownership

      • Practical takeaways:

      • Create direct paths for stakeholders to get bug status without routing everything through product
      • Use dashboards, shared tools, or Slack channels instead of one-off updates
      • Escalate systemic quality issues to engineering leadership, not individual contributors
      • Advocate for real engineering leadership if your org expects product teams—not IT teams

        • Resources & Links:

        • Follow Teresa Torres: https://ProductTalk.org
        • Follow Petra Wille: https://Petra-Wille.com
          • ...more
          View all episodesView all episodes
          Download on the App Store
          All Things Product with Teresa and PetraBy Petra Wille & Teresa Torres