Prologue: The Question

The text arrived at 11:47 PM on a Tuesday.

"Dad, I want to be a Product Manager."

I stared at my phone. My daughter Carlota had been working in operations for two years at a SaaS company. Good company, decent salary, complex workflows. She knew the product better than most people who'd been there five years. She could predict which features would break before they broke. She'd even started sending bug reports with reproduction steps so detailed that engineers called her "The Documentation Fairy."

And now she wanted to be a PM.

I put down my whiskey and typed back: "Why?"

Three dots appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again. Finally:

"Because I'm tired of just watching things break. I want to decide what gets built. I want to fix problems before they become tickets. I want to matter."

I smiled. I'd felt exactly the same way thirty years ago, when I transitioned from engineering to product. Back then, the path was simple: demonstrate business sense, learn to write specs, get promoted. The role was clear. Product Managers decided what to build. Engineers built it. Designers made it pretty. Everyone knew their lane.

That world doesn't exist anymore.

I called her instead of texting.

"So you want to be a PM," I said.

"Yes. But I don't know how. Every job posting wants three to five years of PM experience. How do you get experience without having experience?"

"The classic chicken-and-egg problem."

"Exactly. And all the advice online is useless. 'Build side projects.' 'Get certified.' 'Network.' I've been networking for months. Nothing. I'm stuck."

I took a breath. This was going to be a longer conversation than she expected.

"Sara, when you say 'Product Manager,' what do you think the job is?"

"You know—deciding what features to build. Writing requirements. Working with engineers. Running meetings. That kind of stuff."

"That's what I would have said ten years ago. And you're not wrong. But things have changed."

"Changed how?"

"The industry is splitting. There are still traditional PM roles at traditional companies—the kind where you write specs, run ceremonies, manage stakeholders, and never touch code. You could spend your whole career doing that, and it would be a good career."

"That sounds fine to me."

"But there's also a new path emerging. At some companies—especially the fast-moving ones, the AI-native ones—the PM role looks completely different. These places want people who can go from customer problem to working prototype without waiting for anyone. They want Product Engineers."

"Product Engineers?"

"Hybrid roles. Part PM, part builder. They talk to customers in the morning and ship code in the afternoon. They don't write specs—they write software. They don't coordinate teams—they are the team."

Silence on the other end.

"Dad, I don't know how to code."

"Neither did I, until last year. Now I use AI to build things I never could have built before. The tools have changed. What used to take a developer a week, I can prototype in an afternoon. I'm not saying I'm an engineer. But I can validate ideas without waiting for anyone."

"So which path should I take?"

"That's the million-dollar question. And the answer is: it depends."

"On what?"

"On the kind of company you want to work for. On your strengths. On what energizes you. On where you see yourself in ten years. Both paths are valid. Both will exist for the foreseeable future. But they require different skills, different mindsets, different approaches."

"That's not helpful, Dad."

"I know. That's why I'm going to write it all down for you."

"Write what down?"

"Everything you need to know. How to become a traditional PM. How to become a Product Engineer. How to figure out which path is right for you. How to break in. How to survive your first ninety days. How to grow. Everything I've learned in thirty years, plus everything I've had to unlearn in the last three."

"That's a lot."

"It is. But you asked the question. You deserve a real answer."

I heard her exhale.

"Okay. When do we start?"

"Turn the page."

A Note to the Reader

This book is structured in three parts.

Part I: The Traditional Path covers what most people think of when they hear "Product Manager." The fundamentals. The vocabulary. The frameworks. The skills you'll need at any company with an established product team and Scrum process. If you want a straightforward PM career at a mid-size or large company, Part I has everything you need.

Part II: The AI-Transformed Path explores how artificial intelligence is reshaping the profession. You'll learn about the Product Engineer model, the new tools that let PMs build directly, and how companies are flattening hierarchies and eliminating traditional PM roles. If you're aiming for startups, AI-native companies, or want to future-proof your career, Part II is essential.

Part III: Your Career provides practical guidance for making the transition—whichever path you choose. Breaking in. Surviving the first ninety days. Growing over time. Playing the long game.

You can read this book cover to cover, or jump to the sections most relevant to your situation. Each chapter ends with exercises—I recommend doing them. Reading about product management doesn't make you a product manager. Building things does.

One more thing: I wrote this for Sara, but I'm publishing it because I know there are thousands of people in the same position. Smart people stuck in support, operations, QA, or other roles, wondering how to break into product. People who understand customers deeply but don't have the vocabulary. People who see problems every day but don't have the authority to fix them.

If that's you, this book is for you too.

The path isn't easy. The industry is changing fast. But the people who figure this out—who combine customer empathy with strategic thinking, who can navigate both the traditional world and the AI-transformed one—will be in high demand for decades.

Let's get started.