Designers who PM
In many fast-growing product teams, hiring engineers is often seen as the highest-leverage investment. But what if I told you that a great designer—especially one who can flex into product management—can be just as impactful, if not more so? A strong designer who understands PM work is one of the most under-leveraged hires after you have a team of 6-8 engineers, capable of accelerating engineering productivity in ways that are often overlooked.
How a Designer-PM Hybrid Supercharges Engineering Productivity
1. Avoiding Costly Mistakes Upfront
One of the biggest drains on engineering resources is building the wrong thing. A great designer with PM instincts ensures that engineers aren’t wasting cycles on features that don’t solve user problems. They help validate ideas early, get real user feedback, and iterate before a single line of code is written. This alone can save months of wasted effort.
2. Making Design Decisions Faster
In many engineering discussions, design-related decisions can become bottlenecks. When engineers disagree on UX approaches, having a designer in the room who understands the product vision and can make authoritative calls prevents decision paralysis. Instead of long back-and-forths or delayed releases, this designer acts as the tie-breaker, keeping projects moving smoothly.
3. Connecting the Dots Across the Product
Engineers often focus deeply on their specific areas, while product managers juggle multiple priorities and stakeholders. A designer-PM hybrid can bridge the gaps, ensuring consistency across different parts of the product and catching misalignments before they become engineering problems. This kind of systems thinking prevents fragmentation and redundancy, making the overall product experience more cohesive and efficient.
Before You Hire Engineer #N, Consider Your First Designer
It’s common for early-stage startups to push off hiring a designer, prioritizing engineers instead. But if you’re about to bring on your 7th engineer, it might be worth considering whether a strong designer with PM capabilities would provide even more leverage. With the right designer in place, your existing engineers can work more effectively, avoiding rework and building the right solutions from the start.
Why Start with a Designer Who Can PM (Not the Other Way Around)?
Some teams try to bridge the gap by hiring PMs who “attempt to Figma.” While this might work in certain cases, I’ve seen that it’s often a poor substitute for a designer who already thinks like a PM. A designer who understands the user experience deeply and can also manage prioritization and product vision is far more valuable than a PM attempting to reverse-engineer design principles. Good design isn’t just about making things look nice—it’s about making things work well, which requires deep intuition that comes from actual design expertise.
The Future: A Blurring of Roles?
Looking ahead, I strongly believe that the lines between designers, PMs, and even software engineers will continue to blur. As tools become more powerful (hint: AI) and intuitive, designers will be able to implement more of their ideas directly. Engineers, in turn, will need to develop stronger design and product sense to stay relevant. In the long run, we might see a single role that encompasses aspects of all three disciplines—a shift that almost seems inevitable when I think about future of software engineering.
For now, though, one thing is clear: if you’re building a team and looking for leverage, a designer who can do PM work might be the smartest hire you haven’t yet made — these are some of the hardest hires you’ll make, but also, some of the best ones if you find the right person.