Practica
HomeAI Challenge Coach
Curriculum
Products
Sign Up
Sign In
Practica
Customers
Engineering

Product-Focused Engineering

189 people are learning this skill right now!

  1. Learn Product-Focused Engineering with the Practica AI Coach

    The Practica AI Coach helps you improve in Product-Focused Engineering by using your current work challenges as opportunities to improve. The AI Coach will ask you questions, instruct you on concepts and tactics, and give you feedback as you make progress.

  2. What are Product Engineers?

    • Uber logo
      The Product-Minded Software Engineer

      Gergely Orosz, Engineering Manager, Uber

      Gergely summarizes 9 traits he's observed in product-minded engineers, and tips for any engineer to become more product-minded. Product-minded engineers have a deep interest in the product itself, understand why decisions are made, and enjoy being involved in making product decisions. They are proactive with product ideas/opinions, have an interest in the business, user behavior, and data on this, possess curiosity and a keen interest in "why?", have strong communication skills and relationships with non-engineers, and offer product/engineering tradeoffs upfront. Product-minded engineers are often key contributors to user-facing features and become team leads.
    • Atlassian logo
      Product engineers

      Sherif Mansour, Distinguished Product Manager, Atlassian

      Sherif, a product manager, identifies the characteristics of a product engineer and how product managers can work with them most effectively.

  3. Common Product-Focused Engineering Challenges

    These are common challenges people face when gaining expertise in product-focused engineering. Tackling these challenges head-on can help you learn this skill quicker.

    I'm a software engineer at a startup that is transitioning from a project-focused approach to a more product-focused engineering culture. The challenge is that I'm used to working on short-term projects with clear deliverables, but now I'm expected to think more holistically about the product and long-term roadmap. What can I do to shift my mindset and become more product-focused in my thinking?
    I'm an engineering leader at a mid-sized tech company. We have a strong product-focused engineering culture, but I'm struggling to balance the demands of the product team with the technical debt and infrastructure improvements that my engineering team needs to address. How can I effectively manage the competing priorities of the product team and the engineering team to ensure a balance between new features and technical debt?
    Work on your own challenge with the Practica AI Coach

  4. How to Build a Product-Focused Engineering Team

    • Pared logo
      How to Build a Product Focused Engineering Organization

      Wayne Pan, VP of Product & Engineering, Pared

      Wayne shares five organization-level practices that help make engineering an innovation center, not just ticket takers: 1. Close the distance between creators and users 2. Take everybody on the journey 3. Sit together 4. Ideas come from everybody 5. Shared product and engineering priorities