The PM Superpower: Being Bilingual

The insight: CSMs can't run engineering planning sessions. Engineers can't run customer demos. But PMs do both. That's not because we're mediocre at everything—it's because our value is being the translator.

Why it matters: Most companies have a translation gap between "what customers need" and "what engineers build." That gap is expensive. It creates misaligned work, wasted effort, and products nobody wants.

What this means for you:

• •You need to speak both languages fluently
• •"Engineering fluent" = understanding technical constraints, feasibility, architecture decisions
• •"Customer fluent" = understanding use cases, pain points, workflow realities
• •Your job is to make both groups better by translating between them

The test: Can you sit in an engineering planning session and add value? Can you sit in a customer demo and run it yourself? If you can't do both, you're not fully doing the PM job.