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The Product Engineer

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Re: The Product Engineer

#41

Post by palakchokshi »

reverius42 wrote: post #36
palakchokshi wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would differentiate them in the following way: Product Engineer: Focused on creating something that fulfills users' need or want UX Engineer: Focused on polishing the product to make sure the user's need or want is fulfilled with the least amount of friction.

UX is not about polish. UX is the product -- literally, from the user's perspective. I don't think there is a meaningful difference between Product Engineer and UX Engineer.

The X in UX is Experience so indeed a UX Engineer's role would be to improve the user's experience of the product not necessarily define what the product should be. It's unfortunate that UX is being confused with Product. Let me illustrate with an example: Consider a product with 20 features, 10 of which will be helpful to the user once they have been using the product for a while. The UX engineer's job is to identify this and provide a user flow of progressive disclosure of those 10 features based on user's actions. This improves the Experience for a user by not overwhelming them with all 20 features when they are just starting to use the product.

A Product Engineer's job is to identify the 20 features because they are useful for users.

Re: The Product Engineer

#42

Post by keepitsurreal »

reverius42 wrote: post #36
palakchokshi wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would differentiate them in the following way: Product Engineer: Focused on creating something that fulfills users' need or want UX Engineer: Focused on polishing the product to make sure the user's need or want is fulfilled with the least amount of friction.

UX is not about polish. UX is the product -- literally, from the user's perspective. I don't think there is a meaningful difference between Product Engineer and UX Engineer.

But how much technical skills do most UX Engineers have? Seems from the general consensus Production Engineers touch software more.

Re: The Product Engineer

#43

Post by mpdehaan2 »

palakchokshi wrote: post #30
mpdehaan2 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a good post and a good thought. Software is a giant LEGO set with no instructions, and it takes a good mixture of how to build things and knowing what you can build. A lot of times people want to reduce product management to "visit customers, ask what they want, make a spreadsheet", but I think it's more than that. To do it well, you have to know the possibilities the existing stack could grow into, and also wha…

A technical Product Manager would be a Product Engineer but the inverse might not be true. In my mind a good Product Manager is also responsible for guiding the product roadmap in the direction that addresses user's wants rather than features that are cool to implement but don't really address a user's wants or needs.

Yep, definitely. As a really bad analogy, if you are in the ice cream business and ask a customer, they will recommend you changes in flavors, but if there was, say, a huge chance in a new kind of popsicle, they'd never tell you about that. There's also a dichotomy between the things they'll ask for and what you need to get them to stay with you, or get other users sold. You can make an existing user really really happy (which I approve of), but in doing so, you might not be expanding market. Just trying to retain them is not a good solution, but there's a balance there.

But yeah, the customer is not usually going to tell you the world takeover strategy.

I kinda wrote something about that here - http://michaeldehaan.net/post/118860078737/the-rockpaperscis...

Re: The Product Engineer

#44

Post by NetStrikeForce »

dasil003 wrote: post #31
system_32 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The product engineer wouldn't necessarily (or rather, shouldn't) implement the functionality. That would be left to the full stack engineer.

If the product engineer doesn't implement, why is engineer in their title? Is it just a rebranded UX Designer? Is it a glorified Software Architect?

She engineers the product, but doesn't lay the bricks. The product is not just the software.

Re: The Product Engineer

#45

Post by pcunite »

keepitsurreal wrote: post #34

Does anyone have any advice finding these roles? Most of my main projects have included me building products up from the ground up with successful releases. I've been cramming technical interview questions because its seems like the only foot in the door, but this kind of position is where I know I'll thrive. Where do I look for Production Engineering positions? How does a new grad w/ a CS background move into one of…

I'm in the throes of this right now, but I think product manager is close. Read the job description to see if it errors on the side of programming.

Re: The Product Engineer

#46

Post by jaunkst »

Product engineers are sought after, and for companies that build flag-ship products they should be core to development. Product developers are often founders and should guide the vision as they have the product itself at heart and mind.

https://data.triplebyte.com/who-y-combinator-companies-want-...

Re: The Product Engineer

#47

Post by Drdrdrq »

noir_lord wrote: post #11
BillinghamJ wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What should we be asking/looking for/testing?

I'd hand them a piece of paper and ask them to sketch out a profile page that's user friendly. Then I'd ask them how they'd design the schema for that. Then I'd ask them to sketch out the admin interface for managing users and how they'd implement that. If they start asking questions about permissions and roles and such I'd be really impressed. Essentially I'd act like a client/end user who kinda knows what they want…

Wow. Just wow. This hiring process is so refreshing it actually makes me want to work for you, and I'm only half kidding. Are you hiring? ;)

Re: The Product Engineer

#49

Post by sweezyjeezy »

guelo wrote: post #40

Everyone that walks around with a touch screen computer in their pocket thinks they are a genius of product design. But if you actually want to design products the first step is to become an expert in the code. So stop day dreaming that you're the new Steve Jobs and get coding.

> if you actually want to design products the first step is to become an expert in the code

I'd say the first step in designing a good product is understanding what the client/customer actually wants. That is where a position like product engineer/product manager are invaluable. It doesn't matter how good you are at coding, if no one wants the thing you're working on.

Re: The Product Engineer

#50

Post by gonyea »

Bingo. I'm a product engineer as well. I build products in 1/4 the time of an entire team, with unit/integration tests. It's also technically correct--that is, as technically correct as it needs to be to ship, scale, and see if it gains traction.

Waste my time white boarding a sorting algorithm and I'll turn down the job (well, unless the money is insane).

But designing the flow/architecture of a new product idea? That's my catnip. I'll white board THAT.

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