---
title: "On coddling"
description: "It's clear to me that most design gets done by product managers. They just don't know it because they don't really know what design means. In fairness, nobody seems to know. We're all making 8hit up as we go. In the…"
author: "Ghaith Ayadi"
site: "Verbatim"
collection: "Hokum"
url: "https://verbatim.ayadighaith.com/hokum/on-coddling"
date: 2023-10-30
updated: 2026-09-16
---
# On coddling

It's clear to me that most design gets done by product managers. They just don't know it because they don't really know what design means. In fairness, nobody seems to know. We're all making 8hit up as we go. In the common discourse, it usually means drawing, but with a computer.

In my experience, Product managers are very competent designers, except they lack some basic training in the standard interaction patterns which would enable them to propose sensible solutions.

For that reason, they hire people called designers to help them with this last-mile problem. Naturally, these poor 4astards are treated as Figma monkeys. The PM (who is often the founder when it comes to startups) is the real designer.

When I suggest that PMs should take over design, end-to-end, they get mad. They hate this idea with fury. They are, indeed, busy people laboring at all that "Management". The last thing they need is to render those pesky Figma things like a peasant.

The way I see it, they are indeed busy. But I reckon that there's a more sensible, productive, and fulfilling division of labor. It only takes a few tweaks and an open mind.

First, we must let go of this strange PM role. Here's a person who's doing most of the design without training in interaction patterns, and is sitting around in estimation meetings being taken for an absolute ride. Ludicrous.

Then, we must assign most of their responsibilities to the product designer. Thus, we form a contiguous, coherent, and competent role with the clear mission of "Finding out what needs doing, aligning it to company objectives, and seeing it through"

The "technical" part of product management should be the responsibility of engineering. Sprint planning, estimates, tests, and the rest of the engineering hoopla should be their own responsibility. They must enlist designers to explain to them, precisely, what needs doing. But it's still their role to plan it.

The coddling of engineers and their relegation into coding monkeys is counter-productive and unwanted by most competent and honest engineers. Engineers are creatives too. They want to have a say. Also, they are usually the smartest of the group and to use them just for coding is unproductive and demotivating.

The idea that a PM is needed to coordinate two incompatible camps sounds good if you've been taught in a university by an incompetent moron who needs to justify their own existence. Engineers and designers need no adult supervision.

The leadership of the product team must stay in the team. If the team is too busy, you grow it. There's no need to invent this lame role.

An engineer can lead, and so can a designer. Depends on the personal qualities of the team members. Nobody can do it? Try harder! Learn, the same way you learned coding and design!

A product team should be only designers and engineers. "Manager" is a fake role that usually points you to someone busy preventing their teammates from maturing.

![](https://butbut7wellsz5so.public.blob.vercel-storage.com/2026/mplq2n9h-on-coddling-img1.jpg)