Zerodha’s lean engineering philosophy—famously built without full-time product managers—has resurfaced in the tech world after entrepreneur Dilip Kumar pointed out that the online brokerage generated over $1 billion in revenue and $500 million in profit, all while being run by a core team of around 30 engineers.
Kumar highlighted Zerodha’s unconventional structure in a post on X, writing:
“Zerodha made $1B+ in revenues & $500m+ in profits without any full-time PM… Engineering efficiency is a moat, not a feature.”
His remarks were prompted by tech analyst Peter Yang, who noted that AI coding platform Cursor grew to a valuation of $29 billion with a similarly lean structure and zero traditional product managers. According to Yang, Cursor’s workflow is intentionally designed to avoid big-tech bureaucracy: engineers and designers share PM responsibilities, most features are prototyped directly in code, and development follows a flexible “fuzzy direction” rather than rigid annual roadmaps.
Yang clarified that he was not dismissing the importance of product managers but argued that PM roles are evolving—especially in fast-moving AI environments.
“My takeaway: there will be fewer PM roles, but skilled PMs will still 10x their teams,” he said.
Industry Reacts: “No PM” Doesn’t Mean “No Product Work”
Responding to Kumar’s post, UniCourt CTO Prashanth Shenoy said that the absence of the title doesn’t eliminate the responsibilities.
“Engineering is listening to customer feedback directly and deciding what to build next. Someone is definitely playing the product role,” he wrote.
Zerodha’s leadership has echoed this sentiment for years.
In a widely shared 2020 blog post, Zerodha CTO Kailash Nadh explained how the company scaled to become India’s largest stockbroker with a tightly knit engineering team. The team consisted of:
- 2 mobile developers
- 2 designers
- 2 frontend developers
- 1 test engineer
- 1 devops engineer
- 1 liaison
- The rest: full-stack developers
Nadh emphasized that the company had no dedicated product or project managers, and that developers naturally stepped into leadership roles. Small “micro teams” of two to four engineers were responsible for entire products from start to finish.
A Model Challenging the Big-Tech Playbook
Zerodha and Cursor’s success stories challenge long-standing assumptions about product management in tech. As AI accelerates development cycles and reduces administrative friction, companies with minimal hierarchy—and highly empowered engineers—are increasingly seen as potential models for the future.Zerodha’s lean engineering philosophy—famously built without full-time product managers—has resurfaced in the tech world after entrepreneur Dilip Kumar pointed out that the online brokerage generated over $1 billion in revenue and $500 million in profit, all while being run by a core team of around 30 engineers.
Kumar highlighted Zerodha’s unconventional structure in a post on X, writing:
“Zerodha made $1B+ in revenues & $500m+ in profits without any full-time PM… Engineering efficiency is a moat, not a feature.”
His remarks were prompted by tech analyst Peter Yang, who noted that AI coding platform Cursor grew to a valuation of $29 billion with a similarly lean structure and zero traditional product managers. According to Yang, Cursor’s workflow is intentionally designed to avoid big-tech bureaucracy: engineers and designers share PM responsibilities, most features are prototyped directly in code, and development follows a flexible “fuzzy direction” rather than rigid annual roadmaps.
Yang clarified that he was not dismissing the importance of product managers but argued that PM roles are evolving—especially in fast-moving AI environments.
“My takeaway: there will be fewer PM roles, but skilled PMs will still 10x their teams,” he said.
Industry Reacts: “No PM” Doesn’t Mean “No Product Work”
Responding to Kumar’s post, UniCourt CTO Prashanth Shenoy said that the absence of the title doesn’t eliminate the responsibilities.
“Engineering is listening to customer feedback directly and deciding what to build next. Someone is definitely playing the product role,” he wrote.
Zerodha’s leadership has echoed this sentiment for years.
In a widely shared 2020 blog post, Zerodha CTO Kailash Nadh explained how the company scaled to become India’s largest stockbroker with a tightly knit engineering team. The team consisted of:
- 2 mobile developers
- 2 designers
- 2 frontend developers
- 1 test engineer
- 1 devops engineer
- 1 liaison
- The rest: full-stack developers
Nadh emphasized that the company had no dedicated product or project managers, and that developers naturally stepped into leadership roles. Small “micro teams” of two to four engineers were responsible for entire products from start to finish.
A Model Challenging the Big-Tech Playbook
Zerodha and Cursor’s success stories challenge long-standing assumptions about product management in tech. As AI accelerates development cycles and reduces administrative friction, companies with minimal hierarchy—and highly empowered engineers—are increasingly seen as potential models for the future.
