BONUS The End of Product Management? Three Experts Reveal the Unstoppable Rise of Product Engineers | Anton Zaides, Rafa Paez, and Max Piechota
Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast: Agile storytelling from the trenches
Understanding Problems Before Solutions
This chapter emphasizes the necessity of thoroughly understanding user needs and the root causes of problems in product management. It also explores the impact of financial incentives on developer motivation, advocating for a connection between technical contributions and business outcomes.
In this BONUS episode, we explore the emerging concept of the Product Engineer with three experts in the field: Anton Zaides, Rafa Paez, and Max Piechota. Together, they discuss how software engineers are evolving beyond just technical skills to embrace product thinking, business understanding, and customer empathy. This shift represents a move toward what they call "M-skilled" professionals who combine technical expertise with product sensibility to create greater impact.
The Evolution of Software Engineering"The role of the software engineer is evolving to a product engineer...they understand what to build and why they are building it."
Rafa Paez kicks off the conversation by sharing insights from his article on Substack, titled "The Rise of the 100x Product Engineer." He explains how the modern software engineer is taking on greater ownership of their work, focusing not just on writing code but understanding the underlying business reasons for features. This new breed of engineers thinks critically about product metrics, challenges assumptions, and takes extreme ownership of outcomes rather than just outputs.
Breaking Product Management"Engineers don't really care about what they work on...but what if they did?"
Anton Zaides discusses his provocative Substack article "Product Management is broken, a change is coming," where he challenges the traditional separation between engineers and product decisions. He describes the phenomenon of the "ZOOM-based product manager" who remains disconnected from both users and engineers, and contrasts this with engineers who genuinely care about the products they build. Anton argues that when engineers are invested in the product outcomes, the entire development process improves.
Measuring What Matters"We need to measure the product outcome, the customer value and incentivize developers based on that."
Max Piechota shares how his journey toward product engineering began through conversations with his CEO about measuring software engineer performance. His research led him to realize that traditional engineering metrics often miss what truly matters - the value delivered to customers. Max advocates for aligning developer incentives with product outcomes rather than just code output, representing a fundamental shift in how we evaluate technical contributions.
Catalyzing the Transformation"What helped me change was working with those people that wanted to create products."
The conversation turns to practical ways to foster this evolution toward product engineering:
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Max describes how exposure to product-oriented colleagues and learning about the Lean Startup methodology transformed his perspective as a developer.
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Anton outlines a three-step approach: helping engineers see metrics and user interactions, building business literacy, and connecting more deeply with the domain.
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The group discusses the importance of helping engineers understand concepts like gross margin and the AARRR framework (Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Revenue, Referral).
"Often we only focus on the solution, without understanding the actual problem we are trying to solve."
One crucial insight from the conversation is the need for engineers to take a step back from solution mode and better understand the underlying problems. The panel shares practical tips:
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Clarify how the business works and identify opportunities for improvement
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Be thoughtful about how developers are incentivized
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Connect technical decisions to financial outcomes
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Focus on landing page conversion and other customer-facing metrics when they're the bottleneck to growth
This mindset shift enables engineers to make more strategic decisions about where to invest their technical efforts for maximum impact.
About Anton Zaides, Rafa Páez, Max Piechota
Anton Zaides is the founder of Manager.dev, where he shares insights about engineering management and product development. With extensive experience in both engineering and product leadership roles, Anton is passionate about bridging the gap between technical execution and product vision.
You can link with Anton Zaides on Substack. For inquiries, reach him at Anton@manager.dev.
Rafa Paez is a product engineering advocate who wrote the influential article "The Rise of the 100x Product Engineer." Through his work, Rafa explores how engineers can expand their impact by embracing product thinking and business understanding alongside technical skills.
You can link with Rafa Paez on Substack. Find more of his work at rafapaez.com.
Max Piechota is a thought leader in the engineering productivity space who has researched effective ways to measure and improve developer performance. He advocates for outcome-based metrics that focus on customer value rather than code output.
You can link with Max Piechota on Substack.
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