Product Engineer Handbook V1 Megaissue

[andyvan-ph]

I've been nibbling away at this on and off over the last month or so and now have a solid plan to get a V1 of this live by end of Q2.

Goal for Q2

We want to completely own the concept of the Product Engineer by creating its central text. This initial version should be viewed as an MVP that brings together existing content in a more coherent way.

I'm likely going to pitch the core chapters as being slightly below "newsletter standard" for the sake of speed, though they'll be in large part derived from existing newsletter work.

Long-term goals

To evolve in this into something approaching a "text book" type experience where we go deep on specific areas – e.g. we could have multiple chapters on how to learn about talking to users which are designed to be read chronologically, but can be enjoyed individually too.

Visual reference

You can mostly ignore the headlings here (very WIP). This is just a reference for what the initial experience will look like.

In this early version, the "starter guides" will just link to existing articles. As we build this out, we'd integrate this content into the handbook itself, just like in the company handbook.

Launch chapters

1. What is a product engineer?

• An expanded version of @ivanagas's seminal work.
• Will include how we define product engineers + the traits to product engineers
• We'll redirect the original article into this page. This will be the main way we get organic traffic to the guide from day 1.

2. Why are product engineers worthwhile? (title TBD)

• This is the "why" chapter.
• Split into two sections:
  • one for companies / founders (i.e. business benefits)
  • one for individuals (person benefits for engineers who do this)
• Some of this will be based on existing content, but will need some new.

3. Skills you need to become a product engineer

• Based on existing content

4. How product engineers and product managers work together

• Remix of existing content:
  • https://posthog.com/blog/product-engineer-vs-product-manager (will redirect)
  • https://newsletter.posthog.com/p/product-management-is-broken-engineers

5. Are product engineers the same as growth engineers?

• Based on / adapted from: https://posthog.com/blog/what-is-a-growth-engineer
• We may redirect as well. Unsure atm.
• May use this for inspiration and ideas too: https://newsletter.posthog.com/p/how-to-think-like-a-growth-engineer

6. Anti-patterns for product engineers

• Based on existing
  • expand on "not cracked" section here: https://newsletter.posthog.com/p/hiring-and-managing-cracked-engineers
  • Some points from here: https://newsletter.posthog.com/p/non-obvious-behaviors-that-will-kill

7. What product engineers need to thrive

• This is based on existing content and themed on established company culture stuff (transparency, autonomy, trust and feedback, etc.)

8. How product engineers work at PostHog

• I'm imagining this as a totally new piece of content with a bit more of a case study type of approach.
• This will be a bigger lift, so filing it under "nice to have" and a non-blocker to launch.

9. How to find a job as a product engineer

• This will be a new piece of content
• Tactical guide for finding companies like ours
• Plug for our jobs board + how to read job ads to find the signs
• Again, given it's totally new, not a blocker for launch.

10. Recommended reading for aspiring product engineers

• Simple page of recommended books and newsletters
• Will probably plug the starter guides here too
• Alternatively, if we don't like the external links in the sidebar idea, we could just included the starter guides here as an onward journey.

Next steps

• Clone the handbook and create a skeleton version of the product engineer handbook that we can start filling out. @andyvan-ph with assist from Eli (probably)
• More detailed outlines of the core chapters and points we want to cover @andyvan-ph
• Assign filling out some chapters to individuals following the outline provided @andyvan-ph

[andyvan-ph]

Tagging @ivanagas @Lior539 @daniloc for thoughts on the above. No actions for anyone other than me atm, but that will change soon. I'm going to try and keep this a relatively light lift by re-using and remixing existing stuff.

[ivanagas]

I don't think you should redirect "What is a growth engineer?" as it seems to rank well for "growth engineer" and "Product engineer vs growth engineer" won't rank as well. Otherwise, looks good to me.

[andyvan-ph]

Yeah, this was why I was unsure about that too.

[andyvan-ph]

Also, we may want to do a growth engineer handbook one day, and that post will make a good gateway for that!