> They're someone who would likely make a good product manager if they ever decide to give up the joy of engineering.

Read: If they ever decided to stop working and start siphoning funds to start their own company.

When companies are small the engineering managers are the product managers and the product is good. When a company reaches the point of over-reaching they divide their concerns and hire managers who don’t know how to build the product and are paid to act like they are doing so while whipping engineers who have no interest in the product. Big companies that make good products do so by provisioning small teams with personnel who are essential to their collective goal. They mimic the small company.