November 2026
Beginner to intermediate
242 pages
5h 1m
English
Content preview from A Day in the Life of a Senior Leader
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Chapter 39. The Product Engineer
If you work for a company that primarily builds consumer software, there are, hopefully, three groups of humans who believe they are accountable for the product. They are:
- Engineering
-
They build the product.
- Design
-
No, they build the product.
- Product management
-
No, really…they build the product.
Do you see the issue? You have three groups with different skill sets, each of which firmly believes their decisions are the decisions that allow the product to exist. They are each directionally correct. You can build a good product in a perfect world where each constituency is equally capable of doing its job. This includes a complicated process where these constituencies capably disagree, debate, and learn from their differences.
The problem is, the world is not perfect, and you need to build great product. Now.
Note
For every hypothetical engineer, designer, and product manager that I’m about to implicate as incompetent, there is an equal number who are not just capable; they are an absolute inspiration. There are additional roles that I don’t discuss that are essential to your burgeoning product company. Quality, marketing, sales, support. They are essential, but that’s a different discussion.
Gosh, I want to describe all the interesting failing configurations of engineering, design, and product management that I’ve personally observed sucking the life out of a good product, but let’s start with the greatest hits.
Scenario #1: Product Managers ...
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O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.Julian F.
I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.Addison B.
I’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.Amir M.
I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.