Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth

The things engineers are desperate for PMs to understand | Camille Fournier (author of “The Manager’s Path,” ex-CTO at Rent the Runway)

September 15, 2024

AI Summary

5 min read

Camille Fournier, author of The Manager's Path and former CTO at Rent the Runway, discusses common friction between product managers (PMs) and engineers, drawing from her leadership roles at Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, and elsewhere. She outlines practical ways PMs can build better relationships, pitfalls in system rewrites, engineering management challenges, and effective platform teams.

PM Behaviors That Frustrate Engineers

Engineers resent PMs hoarding credit for projects, as PMs often front initiatives with customers and executives; Fournier advises sharing credit by stepping back and letting engineers present their work, especially on technical heavy lifts. Dismissing technical details signals a lack of empathy for engineering realities, so PMs should listen patiently even to seemingly minor points. "Playing telephone"—relaying questions between stakeholders and engineers without deep understanding—wastes time and erodes trust; instead, connect people directly via group chats or meetings when frequent back-and-forth arises, balancing this against engineers' need to focus on building. Hoarding ideas stifles engineers' creativity, pushing them to over-engineer tech choices like frameworks; strong PMs welcome engineer input on product direction, recognizing engineers' business curiosity while owning prioritization and customer insights.

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What you'll learn

1 *(02:25) **PM behaviors that annoy engineers**
2 *(14:39) **Why rewrites are often a trap**
3 *(20:45) **Staying technical as an engineering leader**
4 *(31:10) **When to leap from IC to management**
5 *(36:24) **Surprises and realities of management**
6 *(40:46) **Fewer one-on-ones for scalability**
7 *(45:51) **Focused work over overwork culture**

+ Full timestamped outline available in the app

Show Notes

Camille Fournier is the author of The Manager’s Path, which many consider the definitive guide for navigating one’s career path in tech. Camille was previously the CTO of Rent the Runway, VP of Technology at Goldman Sachs, Head of Platform Engineering at Two Sigma, and Global Head of Engineering and Architecture at JPMorgan Chase. She is about to release new newest book, Platform Engineering: A Guide for Technical, Product, and People Leaders. In our conversation, we discuss:

• What product managers do that annoys engineers

• Why major rewrites are a trap

• Why you should have fewer one-on-ones

• Strategies for organizing and working with platform teams

• Tips for new managers

• Advice for transitioning from individual contributor to manager

• Much more

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Find the transcript and show notes at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/engineering-leadership-camille-fournier

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Where to find Camille Fournier:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/camille-fournier-9011812/

• Website: https://skamille.medium.com/

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Where to find Lenny:

• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com

• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/

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In this episode, we cover:

(00:00) Camille’s background

(02:17) Common annoyances between PMs and engineers

(07:09) Avoiding the telephone game

(08:05) Hoarding ideas and over-engineering

(09:55) The importance of involving engineers in ideation

(11:37) The middle-person dilemma

(14:21) Rewriting systems: a big trap?

(20:40) Engineering leadership lessons

(36:02) Moving from IC to management

(40:32) One-on-one meetings

(45:10) Pushing beyond comfort zones

(45:27) Building a balanced work culture

(48:01) Effective time management strategies

(54:15) Advice for platform team success

(01:02:42) Platform team responsibilities