Building great relationship with Engineers is one of the key things and it entails the following aspects
1. Don’t manage engineers
2. Involve engineers in the product roadmap and strategy process. Remember, they are part owners of the product
3. Allocate capacity for technical debt in each sprint. I’d recommend 20%. This is super important.
4. Give engineers room to experiment with new technology. It’s like gifting a painter a new set of brushes.
5. Teach engineers how you PM. They will, in turn, they will teach you engineering concepts like how to design an architecture
6. Write thorough and clear requirements specification docs. Include a test criteria for each task
5. Don’t crucify engineers for bugs. Agree on bug classification and estimated resolution time. There will always be bugs to fix. Nobody writes perfect code.
6. Know your engineers. What do they like to do outside of work? Set time aside to get to know each other
7. Trust your engineers. 100%. Doubt kills morale. Where you see room for improvement, be open, provide constructive feedback.
8. Be vulnerable. Let engineers know they can give you constructive feedback to you as their PM
9. Some engineers want to transition to PM. Let them shadow you. Mentor
10. Have fun building
