The Journey from Developer to Product Owner

What should a developer know before considering this transition?

Photo by Matt Howard on Unsplash

Some developers decide to become Product Owners during their journey; I was one of them. I see many advantages as well as disadvantages since the roles have different perspectives and responsibilities. To have a successful transition is vital to understand such differences.

In my case, I didn’t know in-depth what a Product Owner should do, which means I hit the wall couple of times. Therefore I want to share my learnings from it with you.

The advantages I experienced coming from a technical background as a Product Owner:

• A deeper understanding of the technical terms;
• Translation from business language into technical terms and vice-versa;
• Understanding from the development perspective.

The disadvantages I experienced are:

• Excessive focus on technical aspects;
• Forgetting to consider out of the box alternatives;
• Crossing the dangerous border between PO and Development Team.

Some of these aspects deserve more attention. Therefore, I will describe them more in-depth.