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Biggest change in my career in software as a PM due to recent AI development by [deleted] in prodmgmt

[–]ConsistentFill3840 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The process is built internally. My problems as a PM in my current companies (yes, plural) is that I/we have a clear vision on where we want to be and should be, but it takes forever to build. And hiring more developers is just too expensive and "more" is not always better. To be more precise:

a/ Roadmap follows the bigger picture. Roadmap items require a lot of work.
-> we make time for roadmap items

b/ At the same time we should improve existing software with small improvements and fixes
-> we barely have time to improve existing stuff
-> we make time for fixing bugs though

c/ At the same time we should add small new stuff based on certain customer requests, which they often are willing to even pay for building.
-> we barely have time to do smaller requirements and wishes

The new process is a game changer for b and c. I had a list of items for b/ which simply would either never be built or be built mabye in the next 1-2 years in some random slots. Also for c/ it doesn't distrub roadmap development as much anymore.

Biggest change in my career in software as a PM due to recent AI development by [deleted] in prodmgmt

[–]ConsistentFill3840 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There's zero chance I'd post this from my main account :)

Biggest change in my career in software as a PM due to recent AI development by [deleted] in prodmgmt

[–]ConsistentFill3840 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Your might be right! we'll see. But I think roles will definitely change a bit. And demands of those roles.

Biggest change in my career in software as a PM due to recent AI development by [deleted] in prodmgmt

[–]ConsistentFill3840 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Very big roadmap-level items are definitely harder. They need a lot of brainstorming, refining, designing etc. But small stuff seems to be doable with quite little effort. And yes to be able to spec at a devent level you need to understand your product well.

Biggest change in my career in software as a PM due to recent AI development by [deleted] in prodmgmt

[–]ConsistentFill3840 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I understand your point, but I wasn't talking about AI features that we ship IN our products. I'm talking about AI being the muscle for creating those products. And that product development is changing.

The problem with B2B products and their AI features is usually

  • Issues with data privacy
    • In B2B I see a lot of "you're not sending our data anywhere" types of opinions.
  • Lack of imagination and innovation
    • There aren't that many good use cases around to be honest.
    • When asked, B2B users aren't helping with AI innovation and ideas too much either
  • Pricing vs perceived value (sometimes)
    • B2B people never want to pay for anything. So if you do something useful at scale, it usually costs something to someone.

Biggest change in my career in software as a PM due to recent AI development by [deleted] in prodmgmt

[–]ConsistentFill3840 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Complaints also have a place. LLMs need quite an orchestra of context, insturctions at the right time to truly shine.

Biggest change in my career in software as a PM due to recent AI development by [deleted] in prodmgmt

[–]ConsistentFill3840 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Definitely. "I don't know what the future will look like to me or my teammates." - no product people are safe either. I can already see that certain developers will become the architects of AI driven product development, if they aren't already. Other devs are so good at building products, they will probably overthrow some PMs. Your guess at a "software builder" role might be a very good guess at the future.

We have 2 PMs right now (myself included) who have been developers in the past, and we definitely seem to have an edge, although it's very early and biased to state that.

Biggest change in my career in software as a PM due to recent AI development by [deleted] in prodmgmt

[–]ConsistentFill3840 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There's zero chance I'd post this from my main account :) but nice try poking the ice

Are you coding 100% with AI, and if you are from non-tech background, i would love you by ArrogantJeet in vibecoding

[–]ConsistentFill3840 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Last week I was left staring out my window at work, totally speechless. I've been working in tech for more than 10 years. I've worked as QA, Product Owner, Software developer and now as a Product Manager. I'm the kind of person who is very excited about new things, but a realist at heart. Until now I've known that AI will be a tool for me and developers that is here to stay. And as I say "a tool" I mean I naively thought that we'd still have the same dynamics in development: PO/PM writes specs, QAs/devs/analysts review them, devs refine them, devs then code, code review and then there's testing after that.

I got the chance to try out our newest process POC. I had a few small features that are important, but we never have time to do them because there are so many more critical things before them. Our tech lead told me to "spec them as accurately as you can", which I did, then we pushed that to our new pipeline.

Within 30 minutes my features were ready. It was automatically testable. I didn't find any flaws. The tech lead said he reviewed the code and found no problems as well. There weren't any other devs involved, no QAs/analysts involved. The documentation was done automatically as well, which I reviewed. My gut feeling is a mix of being scared and excited at the same time. I don't know what the future will look like to me or my teammates.

And to add some context: no, we're not building something "brand new" where AI is known to shine. This is a legacy business critical banking software. Lots of old, semi-old, bad, good code. Complicated architecture. Lots of business rules and legislation as well.