As PM, if you can convince engineers to build things you stipulate, you are golden. But if you can’t, then you are like the dictator who has lost control of his army. It doesn’t matter if you have the United Nations or the church on your side (i.e., if management has anointed you as leader), you’re ending up in front of a firing squad sooner rather than later. The most pitiful sight in the Facebook Ads team was the PMs who had lost the confidence of their engineers. Nominally in charge of some product area, they were like the government in exile of some occupied nation: sitting there with all
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