The top PM skills for 2026 (part 1)

Your survival guide to the top PM skills for the year.

Jan 19, 2026

In 2026, the PM role is changing faster than it ever has.

Lines between product, design and engineering are blurring daily.

AI is forcing us all to question our real value-add.

And every week, there are new tools, new AI models, and new paradigms to keep up with.

To help navigate this shift, I’ve put together a guide to the top PM skills to develop in 2026. This is a long one, so I’ll be splitting it into two parts.

1️⃣ Vibe Coding

It’s #1 on this list for a reason.

Vibe coding (i.e. using AI tools to prototype a solution, or even deploy an MVP to production) is no longer optional. It’s here to stay.

Last year, I was dabbling but still skeptical. My concern was that PMs who vibe coded risked leaving the rest of the team behind.

What’s changed is the pace.

Coding tools are advancing so quickly that everyone on the team will be vibe coding: from PMs to designers to engineers to executives.

We’re already seeing this shift, from CEOs like Tobi Lutke at Shopify to designers shipping code at Notion.

This isn’t a niche skill anymore. It’s becoming table-stakes.

AI agents are getting so good at writing code that the most valuable work on a product team will shift upstream:

Giving coding agents direction
Defining product intent
Evaluating output
Iterating through feedback loops

This X exchange about PMs replacing engineers may be a little over-exaggerated for now, but I can see a very near future where the majority of traditional engineering work is handled by agents.

Today’s PM reality with vibe coding is starting to look more like this:

“New model: PM figures out what to build → PM builds it with agents → PM evaluates → iterate quickly → (when they like it) hand to engineers to go live in prod” -Saboo Shubham on X

I don’t make statements like this lightly, but I’ll say it:

PMs who don’t get hands-on experience with vibe coding now will fall behind.

Why this skill matters:

Speed is the new moat. PMs are expected to use vibe coding to compress idea → feedback loops
PRDs are becoming TL;DRs. Prototypes, demos, and short videos communicate intent faster and at scale

How to start learning:

Start simple with tools like Lovable, Google AI Studio, or v0
→ Build a landing page for your personal site or a side idea
Screenshot an existing feature in your product and iterate on a new version using these tools
Get feedback early by talking to customers or posting on LinkedIn or X
Level up by building a more complex app using Cursor or Claude Code
Next level: integrate auth, payments, and a database

How I’m starting:

Designing a personal portfolio site
Spending a few evenings each week learning Cursor and building an app with payments, login, and a database. More to come on this soon ✨

👉 I’m turning my app build into a complete vibe coding playbook, with a step-by-step guide to ship a full app to production. Join the wait list to get it first.

Join wait list

2️⃣ Vibe founding

I initially saw the term vibe founding when I stumbled across a post from Ethan Mollick, an Associate Professor from Wharton, sharing how he’s teaching a 4-day vibe founding course to Wharton MBAs.

Think of vibe founding as vibe coding applied to building a business.

This skill will be critical for PMs and Product Builders alike because:

PMs will increasingly be asked to act as intrapreneurs
More people will build and launch their own products online
The cost of starting a business is collapsing toward zero

Anyone can now spin up a landing page, validate demand, and ship something real in days, not months.

You can already see this happening:

People launching micro-SaaS products solo
Builders spinning up sites for small local businesses that never had one
PMs turning side projects into real revenue

As Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase writes, if you’re feeling an urge to learn vibe coding, follow the urge with whatever problem you’re facing or idea you have.