The best software developers will at least sprinkle some of this product mindset into their workday. Especially developers who want to be senior or staff level. Understanding customers and stakeholders is always going to work to your advantage. But I like the idea of choosing different paths: you might also explore having overlap with UX designers, content designers, sysops, secops, or marketing. Plenty of ways to differentiate yourself from the looming threat of AI code tools.
Wow I loved this post. I’m a Senior (Staff) Frontend Engineer at AWS and currently redefining my path. As a Frontend Engineer I have been doing the product engineer role. In my experience at Amazon, everyone is a leader and you can go to interviews, do customer researches, if you want to wear that hat. But it is not your daily job. I will follow up on this with some senior leaders I know who created new tech roles. I will follow up also with you if you don’t mind.
While redefining my path I’m writing my newsletter to help other people become exceptional leaders. And to be your best, you need to do a job you love. In my last post I talk about self-assessments that can be our compass towards our Dream Job. I think this post is written perfectly and could be part of those job self-assessments. https://wonderlead.substack.com/p/4-self-assessment-knowing-your-why
Thanks for writing Peter and for sharing Ryan! I'm definitely part Product Engineer for sure. I appreciate you defining what this role typically does. It resonated with me and I find myself doing a lot of things a Product Engineer would do. I agree with you that if you like what you do and it's helping deliver value to users, you're on the right track.
I’m curious about product engineers life in teams without PMs? In the setup Peter mentioned, you have a PM that does the ‘dirty’ product work, so it’s kind of the best of both worlds. In many startups, product engineers ARE the PMs, so I wonder how does that look like, when you have to balance a lot more on your plate in addition to writing code.
The best software developers will at least sprinkle some of this product mindset into their workday. Especially developers who want to be senior or staff level. Understanding customers and stakeholders is always going to work to your advantage. But I like the idea of choosing different paths: you might also explore having overlap with UX designers, content designers, sysops, secops, or marketing. Plenty of ways to differentiate yourself from the looming threat of AI code tools.
Wow I loved this post. I’m a Senior (Staff) Frontend Engineer at AWS and currently redefining my path. As a Frontend Engineer I have been doing the product engineer role. In my experience at Amazon, everyone is a leader and you can go to interviews, do customer researches, if you want to wear that hat. But it is not your daily job. I will follow up on this with some senior leaders I know who created new tech roles. I will follow up also with you if you don’t mind.
While redefining my path I’m writing my newsletter to help other people become exceptional leaders. And to be your best, you need to do a job you love. In my last post I talk about self-assessments that can be our compass towards our Dream Job. I think this post is written perfectly and could be part of those job self-assessments. https://wonderlead.substack.com/p/4-self-assessment-knowing-your-why
Thanks for writing Peter and for sharing Ryan! I'm definitely part Product Engineer for sure. I appreciate you defining what this role typically does. It resonated with me and I find myself doing a lot of things a Product Engineer would do. I agree with you that if you like what you do and it's helping deliver value to users, you're on the right track.
Great article, loved it.
I’m curious about product engineers life in teams without PMs? In the setup Peter mentioned, you have a PM that does the ‘dirty’ product work, so it’s kind of the best of both worlds. In many startups, product engineers ARE the PMs, so I wonder how does that look like, when you have to balance a lot more on your plate in addition to writing code.