That said, holy cow you are a lot more effective collaborating with programmers if you understand the basics of software engineering. In my case I had a decent head start, having worked with programmers of different stripes and having dabbled in HTML/CSS, Python and SQL. Prior to making the transition, I had also spent a few lonely weekends reading up on basic software design. Now as a PM, my basic intuition for technical implementation is the difference between being ignored and paid attention to by my team. I am simply given more credit when I throw down a few technical implementation flourishes here and there.