Should PMs learn to code, or is it a distraction from the actual job?

Every PM newsletter says "learn SQL at minimum." Senior PMs at my company (Series C fintech, 400 people) say the opposite — that the best PMs they have seen are the ones who never opened a terminal and instead spent that time with customers.

I am 3 years into PM. I can write basic SQL and read Python. But every hour I spend debugging a query is an hour I am not spending on user interviews or stakeholder alignment. The opportunity cost feels real.

The counter-argument: without technical depth, you are dependent on engineering for every data question, and that dependency slows you down and erodes trust.