AMA: Anima Chief Product Officer, Orit Golowinski on Developer Product Management

I have never worked for a company that didn't have product managers. However, if I were in a position where I needed to convey the importance of product management to engineering leaders unfamiliar with the role, I would focus on a few key points. First, I would explain the role of the product manager as the person responsible for the vision and roadmap of the product. While developer tools benefit greatly from the hands-on experience and insights of engineers, the product manager looks at the p ...Read More

The developers have a seat at the table when discussing potential features and aspects being considered for the roadmap. It is the role of the product manager to listen to the diverse opinions from various stakeholders, including the developers, and then decide on the priority and roadmap of what will be delivered and when. Developers are always welcome to voice their opinions and explain why they are passionate about specific features. However, the product manager needs to look at the big pictu ...Read More

Open source is fundamentally built around the developer community, where passionate developers find value in using the open-source project. They actively use it, document bugs, and contribute fixes, ideas, and additional functionality to the tool in their spare time. When open-source projects decide to monetize, they typically continue to offer the open-source project for free while introducing paid features on top of it. However, there are several common mistakes that teams make in this process ...Read More

In the last few years, I have noticed three main shifts in the field of developer product management: Developer Experience (DevX):Developer experience is becoming a top priority. With dev tools being adopted in companies from the bottom up, developers are gaining more responsibility and autonomy, including the choice of their development tools. Although the individual developer is often the user rather than the buyer, their opinion is crucial. If developers do not like a tool, they will easily r ...Read More

I work very closely with developers, but the nature of this collaboration has evolved depending on my role. When I was a Senior Product Manager responsible for the roadmap of a specific product line or set of features, I met regularly with each developer on the team. I spent significant time explaining the vision, roadmap, and user stories, as well as reviewing the implementation details to ensure alignment with our goals. As I moved into leadership roles, my collaboration with developers shifte ...Read More