Shipping code with AI as a PM exposes me to real risk—like getting overly caught up in technical context at the expense of business context. But there's one thing I've come to appreciate: it's the best way for a non-engineer to learn how software product actually works.
I became a PM several years ago and thought I had a decent understanding of software. But after opening a lot of PRs for my MVP initiative recently, I'm realizing how much I didn't know. I'm not talking about code syntax. It's the architecture of the building blocks, how CI/CD and deployment work, GitHub best practices, etc. This won't make me as fluent as a real engineer, but it helps me speak their language and build the empathy to make better product decisions together. It's a lot like how I learned the business side of a product by digging into the messy P&L spreadsheet.
So should every PM learn this to be a better PM? No, you can still make good product decisions without knowing how things are actually built. But do I believe I'm becoming a better PM by building small things myself? Yes, it's helping me develop the right intuition and instinct, which ultimately matter the most.
