I'm always surprised when people do not notice this. If you don't have a manager doing the management work for you, YOU are doing the work. At my current job we haven't had a product manager for quite a while, to the point that all engineers have just internalized that we are the product managers, so we frequently show up at meetings to drive product decisions, we talk with partners and everything and every once in a while it dawns on someone _this wasn't supposed to be our job_ but if we don't do it who's gonna do it?
I'm not sure if that is bad or not - while it is annoying to attend all those meetings, often you know the problem well enough that you can just build the right thing. You start to feel empowered to add this feature customers want because you know the customer
I don't think its bad per se, i do enjoy being closer to customers and all, but there's a lot of managing, calendaring, and meetings where I know someone else could be taking them instead of me (and I could focus on the stuff I do that bring more value to the business).
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I'm always surprised when people do not notice this. If you don't have a manager doing the management work for you, YOU are doing the work. At my current job we haven't had a product manager for quite a while, to the point that all engineers have just internalized that we are the product managers, so we frequently show up at meetings to drive product decisions, we talk with partners and everything and every once in a while it dawns on someone _this wasn't supposed to be our job_ but if we don't do it who's gonna do it?
I'm not sure if that is bad or not - while it is annoying to attend all those meetings, often you know the problem well enough that you can just build the right thing. You start to feel empowered to add this feature customers want because you know the customer
I don't think its bad per se, i do enjoy being closer to customers and all, but there's a lot of managing, calendaring, and meetings where I know someone else could be taking them instead of me (and I could focus on the stuff I do that bring more value to the business).
and you're able to deliver features that customers request, especially if they are low engineering lifts