Irene Yu is Helping Product Managers Become More Technical (Without Learning To Code)
Irene is a former developer turned founder of SkipLevel, a consulting and training company focused on improving the interface between product managers and developers. Specifically, by helping product managers become more technical (but not teaching them to code, because that’s not useful.)
In our interview she shares her perspective on where product managers are often letting down their dev teams, her path from dev to founder,a and the mentoring experience that led to the founding of Skip Level.
Links
- The Twitter thread that started it all (I mentioned in the episode) and the LinkedIn article where I got the quote I read in the episode.
- Skip Level where you’ll find a link to 8-question quiz on the home page.
- Irene on LinkedIn and Twitter.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 32:58 — 30.2MB)
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Why does Irene think it’s important to help product managers become more technical, even without teaching them to code?
As she discusses in the interview, she feels PMs should have enough technical knowledge to have useful conversations about technical issues with devs. This doesn’t mean being a code, but it does mean understanding how software is built, the different components of the stack interact, and something about what’s challenging and what’s easy for developers. (Which reminds me of this great XDCD cartoon.)