Product Engineer Checklist TLDR 📘 What is a Product Engineer? Definition: Product engineers are not just coders but builders who care deeply about the entire product, from design to customer satisfaction. Counter to Hyperspecialization: Unlike specialized roles (e.g., frontend, backend), product engineers have a holistic view, bridging gaps between different technical domains. AI: AI tools enhance the role by making specialized tasks more accessible, allowing engineers to focus on product strategy and user experience. Product Engineer Manifesto Core Values: Builders first, software engineers second. Emphasis on combining product thinking with technical execution. Principles: Asking why, continuous delivery, market & customer understanding, teamwork, dogfooding the product yourself, and strategic thinking. Checklist 1. Understand User: Identify who the user is, their needs, pains, and how to delight them. Customer: Distinguish between users and paying customers, understand what makes the product valuable to customers. Market: Analyze the market landscape, competition, and industry standards. Ask Why: Continuously question to uncover root causes and motivations. Leverage Existing Knowledge: Build on existing insights, avoid starting from scratch. 2. Craft Pride in Work: Maintain high standards, avoid technical debt, and ensure quality. Product Feel: Develop a taste for what makes a product great; focus on smooth, intuitive experiences. Efficiency: Deliver quickly and iteratively, prioritize visible progress. Teamwork: Effective communication and leveraging team strengths are crucial. 3. Growth Measure Success: Use analytics and feedback to evaluate the impact of your work. Maximize Impact: Focus on significant bottlenecks, align efforts with company goals, and seek feedback. Stay Ahead: Stay updated on trends, benchmark against competitors, and encourage innovation. 4. Product Vision North Star: Align with the broader product vision and strategy. Design Impact: Ensure new work fits well within the existing design, aiming for simplicity and consistency. Ambition Level: Define whether the goal is incremental improvement or revolutionary change, and prioritize accordingly. This checklist serves as a practical guide for software engineers who wish to level up their career to build great products and break the stereotypes of engineers being thought of as only narrow technologists.

productengineer.org is at 100 ⭐️ github stars!

Our @epilotGmbH team is 32 engineers with: 0 architects 0 eng managers 0 devops engineers 0 platform engineers 0 backend engineers Everyone, with the notable exception of one principal security engineer, directly ships visible customer-facing value as a product engineer. – at Cologne, Germany

Shipped a 13kB website today. Raw index.html + tailwind CLI

What is a Product Engineer? 1/ Picture this: engineers who don't just speak in code but in product design and customer problems.

After 3 years: Bets I made as Head of Engineering @epilotGmbH. Was it worth rewriting our SaaS into serverless microservices? dev.to/epilot/after-3-years-…