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Non-technical PMs struggle to appreciate engineering pain and technical debt

Jeremy Epling · The product wisdom every CPO should ignore | Jeremy Epling (CPO, Vanta) · Mar 19, 2026 · at 1:00:36

Jeremy Epling (CPO of Vanta) reflects on how having an engineering and design background enables product leaders to better understand technical trade-offs.

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“There's definitely product managers who I think they're, they don't know enough about the technical side, which can be fine, but like can't really appreciate the pain engineering is going through and like what on call is like because like they've never really done it and why we need to make this more sustainable and how hard it is to keep like shipping features on like a broken architecture.”

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