According to Business Insider, LinkedIn’s Chief Product Officer Tomer Cohen announced on “Lenny’s Podcast” that the company is ending its long-running associate product manager (APM) program this year. Starting in January, new hires will instead enter a new “associate product builder” program. Cohen stated the goal is to teach them how to code, design, and handle product management work. This shift is part of a broader internal move to a “full-stack builder” model, where individuals can bring a product from idea to launch themselves. The company is also restructuring into small, cross-functional “pods” of these builders to be more nimble. Cohen, who has been at LinkedIn for nearly 14 years, is leaving the company in January.
The End of the Specialist Era?
This is a huge deal. LinkedIn’s APM program was a marquee entry point into tech, a well-trodden path for aspiring product managers. Scrapping it isn’t just an HR change—it’s a philosophical bomb. Cohen’s vision is clear: he wants “builders” who can flex across coding, design, and product thinking. The old model of an engineer, a designer, and a PM in a room has a communication tax, a handoff delay. In theory, a single person or a pod of multi-skilled people can move faster. But here’s the thing: can you really be great at all three? Or do you risk creating a team of generalists who are masters of none? It seems like LinkedIn is betting that in a world of AI-assisted coding and design tools, the barriers are lower. The real skill is judgment and decision-making in “complex, ambiguous situations,” as Cohen put it. Everything else? He’s trying to automate it.
A Broader Tech Industry Reckoning
LinkedIn isn’t operating in a vacuum. This move taps directly into a massive, ongoing debate in tech: what is the actual value of a product manager? The article notes that Microsoft wants more engineers relative to PMs to run leaner. Early-stage teams, according to Surge AI’s Edwin Chen, might not need PMs at all—engineers should drive product. But then you have voices like AI pioneer Andrew Ng saying the exact opposite. He argues that in the age of AI, where prototypes can be built in a day, the bottleneck is no longer engineering speed—it’s product management and making those fast, high-quality decisions. So which is it? Is LinkedIn pioneering the future of work, or is it reacting to cost pressures and a perceived bloat in middle-management roles disguised as “product?” Probably a bit of both.
What It Means For Your Career
If you’re a new grad eyeing tech, this changes the calculus. The message is loud and clear: being a pure “ideas person” or a meeting facilitator isn’t enough anymore. You need tangible, hands-on building skills. Coding and design literacy are becoming non-negotiable, even for roles that were traditionally non-technical. This pushes early careers closer to the old-school startup founder model—the person who can build the MVP themselves. But let’s be real, not everyone is wired that way. Deep specialization still has immense value for solving hard technical problems. The risk is that this model might alienate brilliant specialists who prefer to go deep on one discipline. Will LinkedIn’s pods actually foster innovation, or will they just create a homogenous culture of jacks-of-all-trades? Only time will tell, but it’s a fascinating experiment to watch.
