How To Get Engineering to Trust Product Managers When It Comes to Understanding How They Use Their Tools?

In this episode of Runtime Regret, Joe answers a listener question about how to build trust between engineering and product—especially when product managers want to better understand the DevOps systems and infrastructure tools that keep everything running. Engineers often fear that increased visibility means interference, oversight, or pressure to move faster without regard for risk. What looks like curiosity from product can feel like encroachment to the people carrying operational responsibility.

Joe unpacks why this tension is usually about incentives, not personalities. When product is rewarded for velocity and engineering is accountable for stability, trust doesn’t break down because people don’t like each other—it breaks down because the system pulls them in different directions. This episode explores how to align incentives, clarify boundaries, and create shared accountability so education becomes partnership instead of control. Because when trust between product and engineering fails, the consequences don’t show up in planning—they show up at runtime.