The Product Manager has lasted 30 years: welcome to the Product Builder
The observation is now clear: the model of the Product Manager (PM) traditional is coming to an end. By merging the roles of PM, designer, front-end and back-end engineer under the banner of the Full-Stack Builder, tech giants like LinkedIn and Microsoft are paving the way for an irreversible shift in software development.
A role born from a constraint that is now obsolete
The role of software PM as it has been structured over the last thirty years was born from a specific scarcity: the cost and shortage of engineering time. As long as a feature required three months of work from three developers, it was rational to pay a dedicated person to translate the business, write specifications, and arbitrate priorities.
The emergence of generative AI and vibe-coding collapses this calculation. When the cost of prototyping drops to a few hours, the historical constraint fades: arbitration no longer needs to be delegated to a third party who does not code.
The engineer with product judgement takes the lead
The dynamic has reversed for two fundamental reasons:
Technical skill remains the rare competence: What used to be the daily routine of the PM (interviewing users, breaking down a problem, mocking up three options) is now executed at high speed thanks to AI tools. However, maintaining a solid system in production — with security requirements, scalability, and technical debt — cannot be improvised with a prompt.
The working language has changed: The textual specification of yesterday is replaced by the eval, an executable test suite written in advance to frame the behaviour of AI models. The product framing is now written in code, the native language of the engineer.
The good news: the return to the joy of making
Beyond pure operational efficiency, this shift brings a major liberation for teams: being Product Builder is much more fun and rewarding than being Product Manager.
Over the last ten years, the role of PM had become heavily bureaucratised. Between the ongoing management of Jira backlogs, the arbitration of pressured roadmaps, and internal alignment politics, the very essence of creation had been diluted.
The shift to Product Builder marks the return to craft and digital craftsmanship:
We no longer spend weeks documenting what could be done.
We test, we prototype, we validate live and we deliver.
This is the end of a process manager's posture and the beginning of a much more stimulating era for those whose true passion is to make products.
The new distribution: the three heirs of the Product
The disappearance of the intermediate PM role does not eliminate the work to be done, it redistributes it more clearly:
The Builder inherits the judgement: He defines the need, chooses the use case and validates the solution by building directly.
The Eval inherits the spec: The framing becomes an automated testing suite, integrated directly into the code.
The Program Manager inherits the securing: The management of budgets, schedules and compliance (AI Act, ROI requirements from CFOs) is entrusted to a true programme management function.
Roadmap for organisations
To adapt your structures from today:
Stop the recruitment of coordinating PMs whose job description is limited to "making the link".
Train and recruit Product Builders : technical profiles with strong product judgement and execution-oriented.
Reinstall a rigorous Project / Programme function linked to operations management or finance to ensure governance and ROI of AI initiatives.
The intermediary role is fading. A far more concrete and rewarding era is opening for those who choose to build.