alt Hacker NewsOnly if you assume that all software works the way that product managers think it does.
They come up with the features and the implementation is an unimportant detail in realizing their designs.
In reality implementation details frequently drive design and in most cases they are at least highly intertwined.
I can’t count how many products and features I’ve built that ended working completely differently than the initial design, or how many times I was able to simplify a workflow after spending a days thinking about the implementation details.
You can kinda do something similar by spending days or weeks going back and forth with an LLM, but at least in my experience that doesn’t really save much time and I don’t understand the problem quite as well by the end of it.
I don't disagree with the points you've made but what are they rebutting?
The economic value is still the product you delivered. Your understanding of the implementation meant you participated in the work of the "product manager". I think most good devs do. That might be an argument for devs to transition into designer/PM roles. That is effectively happening already, whether or not role titles have caught up.
But in any case the value isn't in the understanding itself. It just happens that the understanding still helps create better block box products. Also, I wouldn't count on this "human advantage" lasting long. I hope it does, but ime LLMs are now good enough to do this "co-design" too, and will only get better.