Rise of the Product Engineer: AI's Latest Shakeup in Silicon Valley

As AI reshapes engineering productivity, Silicon Valley is rethinking the role of product managers. Anthropic's head of growth, Amol Avasare, highlights a seismic shift: engineers, boosted by AI tools like Claude Code, are now two to three times more productive. Yet, team sizes haven't budged. This imbalance is squeezing product managers and designers who must support these turbocharged teams.

Engineers: The New Product Managers?

With engineers gaining unprecedented productivity through AI, companies face a choice: bolster their product management ranks or innovate new roles. Anthropic is opting for the latter. They're experimenting with engineers doubling as product managers for projects demanding under two weeks of engineering time. This means engineers must juggle cross-functional collaboration, legal liaison, and stakeholder engagement. It's a bold move, but does it truly solve the bottleneck?

Avasare foresees more companies deputizing engineers as 'mini PMs.' But this raises a critical question: can engineers, focused on code, adeptly manage the nuanced demands of product management? Slapping a model on a GPU rental isn't a convergence thesis. The intersection is real. Ninety percent of the projects aren't.

The Hybrid Role: Product Engineer

The industry buzzword here's 'product engineer,' a hybrid role blending coding expertise with product management insights. Zencoder CEO Andrew Filev pointed to this emerging role at the HumanX AI conference, suggesting vibe coding propels this shift. Yet, the question remains: are engineers equipped to wear both hats effectively, or will this experimental role falter under the weight of dual responsibilities?

Decentralized compute sounds great until you benchmark the latency. If productivity gains come at the cost of diluting specialized roles, companies might face a broader efficiency dilemma. Show me the inference costs. Then we'll talk. For now, the concept of a product engineer is intriguing but unproven, teetering between innovation and overreach.