Boundaries Between Product & Engineering

Where exactly is the boundary between product and engineering—and what happens when it gets blurry? In this episode, Teresa Torres and Petra Wille dig into a tension many product teams quietly struggle with: product managers taking on responsibility for bugs, tech debt, and even system architecture. What starts as “being helpful” often turns into burnout for PMs and lower-quality outcomes for everyone. They unpack why this pattern shows up so often, how legacy IT mindsets and the “CEO of the product” myth contribute to the problem, and what healthy product–engineering collaboration actually looks like in modern product teams. If you’ve ever felt like the middleman for bug status, or like you’re expected to own engineering decisions you don’t have the expertise to make—this episode is for you.