Why are designers, engineers, and product managers in a ‘three-way standoff’?

A newsletter about the state of the product job market recently went viral in the design corner of the internet. It’s exposing a widespread debate about whether the role of the designer is narrowing in the age of AI.  On March 24, Lenny Rachitsky, a former Airbnb product developer and author of the business Substack Lenny’s Newsletter, published an article featuring exclusive data on the state of tech hiring in early 2026. The data was collected by TrueUp, a tech job marketplace tracker. Overall, it paints a positive picture for the tech job market. But for designers it points to a moment of hiring uncertainty.  TrueUp found that design roles have plateaued since early 2023, and ever since then, demand for product managers (PMs), the professionals who help guide a product from ideation to completion, has risen. These findings have ignited a debate online about how AI might be fundamentally changing the organizational chart at tech companies—and whether it’s making designers o