The Intersection
Software development has always suffered from a bitter dichotomy between what to build and how to build it. AI hasn’t just widened this chasm, it built an amphitheater inside it.
PMs discover, shape, and prescribe what to build. Engineers figure out how.
This model creates conflict; sometimes cognitive, sometimes emotional. It’s lossy and inefficient, forcing ideas through a cross-functional translation layer that strips away nuance and intent.
It doesn’t have to be this way. Lately, I’ve been experimenting with a different model. One that collapses the gap instead of managing it.
Engineering
I’ve long believed the best engineers wear product and business hats. Shared context creates shared ownership.
Coaching engineers to think like businesspeople and act like PMs has been wildly successful for me, long before GenAI. Now, GenAI commoditizes much of the code and frees engineers for planning and partner management, pulling them out of the weeds and back into creative ownership of outcomes. The payoff is real: shared ownership fuels creativity, and creativity sharpens execution.
But AI isn’t the only lever. Low-code tools built for engineers create a collaborative canvas where engineers and business partners move from discovery to production without a heavy PM handoff.
For example, we recently built a scheduling matchmaker to get patients to the right providers. Instead of writing a PRD and handing it off, the engineer discovered and shaped the edge cases live with the stakeholder. Within days, it was in production with no handoff, no re-translation, no re-interpretation.
Any approach that pulls engineers out of the weeds and onto higher ground is a win.
The industry is shifting. We’re seeing the rise of hybrid product-engineering roles — operators who own outcomes, not just outputs.
Product Management
GenAI is changing things for PMs, too. PMs can now prototype in hours what once took weeks and required engineers. Discovery compresses, iteration accelerates.
But something’s still missing. A prototype isn’t production software. It’s still a prescription handed to engineering.
So the real question becomes: How do we let PMs build in production without sacrificing safety or quality?
My teams have leaned into no-code tools to solve this. Engineers build “legos” for product teams to assemble into real production software.
These legos include frontend components, APIs, workflows, and data pipelines. They expose clean inputs and outputs; PMs wire them together, often accelerated by an AI copilot.
Modern no-code platforms support testing, releasing, monitoring, and debugging. This isn’t a mockup — it runs.
When PMs own the running system, their mindset changes. They stop writing requirements and start thinking in systems.
Collaboration with engineering shifts, too. It moves from delegation to partnership.
The Intersection
When engineers shape like PMs and PMs build like engineers, that’s The Intersection.
Work in the intersection moves faster because each role absorbs part of the other. Autonomy increases, handoffs decrease.
It’s also more collaborative. PMs and engineers still bring specialized skills, but now they overlap enough to share accountability. Engineers depend on PMs for sharper discovery, PMs depend on engineers for durable building blocks.
It’s like a student driver car with two steering wheels, two pedals, and two brakes. Both seats can steer, neither is a passenger.
The traditional dichotomy isn’t going away, and The Intersection model isn’t for everyone. But for teams that want to ship quickly and creatively, The Intersection turns tension into leverage and shared ownership into momentum.
If there’s an amphitheater, don’t argue across it — step into it and make music together.