This post is dedicated to all the great engineering leaders that I worked closely with and what made us work well together.
Working with product can be lonely. Product managers need to influence people without having direct authority. Product managers need to negotiate with stakeholders and also say no to a lot of people who do not expect that response.
Personally I never felt lonely, because I had great engineering leaders as my counter-parts. Many of Engineering managers and leaders I worked with became my friends with time.
If you ever feel that you are lonely as a PM, ask yourself, have you spent enough time building good collaboration with your engineering lead.
1. High degree of trust and support
Tip: Spend time and effort to get to know each other. Building trust requires vulnerability and the ability to work with each other's strengths as well as weaknesses.
2. Alignment towards common goals
Tip: Set goals together as a team and then talk how will both of you as leaders contribute to reaching goals. Are the outcomes clear? Does the team have right competencies and seniority? Do you have a good process in place?
3. Being a team when facing difficult decisions
Tip: Just tell your professional partner that you will be there for them. Sometimes that's enough.
4. Giving each other feedback
Tip: Giving feedback is hard, but it is unavoidable part of the partnership. This helps both of you grow.
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