(Series) How Engineers Can Build Products In Big Tech
(3 Min Read) Step-by-step guide for engineers to build product sense and ship products that customer love.
Today, I am launching a new series to share my perspective on how engineers build/can build products in big tech without or without PM. When I say engineer, I refer to someone in an individual contributor (IC) role or an engineering manager (EM) responsible for building the product.
Throughout my engineering career, I have had the opportunity to build tech products with and without them.
Working with PMs has been fantastic; I have learned much from them. Their knowledge, insights, and frameworks have helped me refine my product sense. Undoubtedly, working with PM results in a better product for the customer and the company.
But there are scenarios when, as an engineer, you don't have PM support. Such as:
🥱 Boring tech: PMs, like engineers, are individuals who like to work on sexy, shiny tech. If your product is customer-facing, there is no shortage of PM support. But if you are building boring tech, PMs are hard to come by. Boring techs like infrastructure, data platforms, and internal tooling rarely have sufficient PM support.
🔻 Undersupply: PMs are in great demand and undersupplied. Every engineering team wants a PM, but no company has a 1:1 or even 1 3 PM to engineering team ratio.
🚶Attrition or reassignment: PMs attrition or reassignment is a reality. When that happens, it takes a while to backfill that role.
🥹 Under-developed or Unskilled: Just like any other role, PMs are either under-developed to match product scope or unskilled.
So when you encounter one of the above scenarios, how do you approach building product’s?
Companies cannot wait to hire PMs to build products and deliver customer value. What's the workaround?
This series will help tackle that. Specifically, this series will help senior engineers and engineering managers who have to play product manager roles in the absence of PM.Â
To be clear, I am not recommending that engineers can and should build products without PM, which is far from it. I recommend that engineers learn how to build products to work better with PMs, understand PM's perspectives, and build products with decent product sense so that when a PM joins a team, they build the product further together.
If you are an engineer (IC or EM) interested in learning how engineers can build decent products, please subscribe. Here is a sneak peek at few of the topics that we will cover in this series:
How do engineers do product discovery?
How engineers can to successful product launch.
How engineers can measure product success.
Tips for engineers, EMs, and PMs on successful collaboration.
How learning about products benefits engineers in growing their careers.
Engineering Excellence Vs Product Market Fit
and many more.
Looking forward to share and learn from the community.