The Product Manager Is Becoming Part Designer and Part Data Scientist
Small teams of generalist engineers, led by a manager who can cover pieces of design and data work, can often move faster than a big specialized squad.
Lenny's Podcast: Product | Growth | Career · The shape of product teams in 2026When asked what the standard product team looks like in 2026, a product leader at a big company began by saying the roles are merging.
“All the functions are starting to bleed into each other and the whole industry is wrestling with what that means,” he said.
He then described the old normal. For a long time, he said, the standard team was large and neatly divided. It had two or three engineers for Android phones, two or three for iPhones, and two or three for the servers that support them, plus maybe a generalist. Alongside the engineers sat a product manager, the person who decides what to build, plus a designer and, if the team was lucky, a data scientist to help interpret the numbers.
This year, he said, that model is changing. His company has adopted what it calls pods. These are mini teams of four to six engineers who work as broader generalists rather than as platform specialists. Each pod is led by someone in a role he calls product staff, which he described as an evolution of the product manager.
By that, he meant a product manager who can cover pieces of design work, data analysis, and customer research. The pod still brings in whatever specialist it needs, he said.
His argument was about coordination. Because the pod has fewer people to coordinate, he said, “they can often move faster and make better decisions” than the larger, specialized team it replaces.
Questions people ask
What do a designer, data scientist, and researcher do on a product team?
As general background, designers typically shape how a product looks and feels, data scientists typically analyze usage data, and researchers typically interview customers about needs. In that older, larger team, a product manager often had to wait on them to move forward.
Does this mean designers and data scientists are going away?
He did not address job losses. They still bring in whatever specialist they need, he said. His point was that with fewer people to coordinate, the small team can often move faster and make better decisions.