HACKER Q&A
📣 oncethere

What to do as a software engineer that cares more about what to build?


I've been an engineer for many years and it's become pretty clear that What a team chooses to build (or not) has far more impact than the architecture / code design choices. Nowadays the role feels like someone else figures out what to build, and we just code it up.

I love coding, but I've gotten to the point where I just can't enjoy it if I'm not involved also choosing what we build. The most interesting time in my career was when I did the spec, architecture, and code of a pretty fundamental system (small team, just lost the PM, fell to me as tech lead). The worst time was contributing for a number of years to a large software platform that had incredible groundbreaking tech and fundamentally failed in the marketplace.

It seems my only choices are to 1.) be a PM and stop coding or 2.) find a team where engineering also makes product decisions

Has anyone else successfully navigated this dilemma?

PS I've had the same experience as an engineering manager - less coding, no real responsibility for what the team chooses to build.

  👤 Epenthesis Accepted Answer ✓
The easiest way to do this is to go to a small company where everyone wears multiple hats. 50 people is probably the upper limit.
👤 markus_zhang
I think Paul Graham has an excellent article named Hacker and Painter regarding this. I think the only way is to develop your own products.

So far I habe worked in a few companies as a business analyst and a bi developer but I have never seen one that allows the dev team to have some final say in the products. Products are always dictated by business team, then project manager or business analyst breaks them down to tickets that you guus understand, i. e. the scope. The lead further breaks them dowm into sprints and tickets.

So you can see that sometimes even product managers don't have much a say in the product.

👤 tppiotrowski
Get in the habit of asking: "What is the problem?"

CEO - "We need a live streaming video platform"

Me - "What is the problem?"

CEO - "I want to do a webcast on our website"

Me - "Would embedding a YouTube video player work? It does x, y and z and it can be ready by tomorrow"

CEO - "Oh! I hadn't considered that"

You need to get back to first principles. Usually your boss wants to accomplish something and then they come up with a solution. Then they fall in love with the solution, not the problem.

You should be asking your boss what they're trying to accomplish instead of letting them propose the solution. If you help devise the solution/product you'll be much happier building it.

👤 karmakaze
> I love coding, but I've gotten to the point where I just can't enjoy it if I'm not involved also choosing what we build.

Would it be sufficient if what is chosen to be built is something you see as a high-value thing to build? Working at a company that is good at setting product directions could be a possible solution.

👤 afarrell
When you interview, make sure you talk to PMs. Also, network at places like Mind the Product.
👤 oncethere
Does anyone else feel this way? Curious about your experience and what works for you. I know lots of engineers that are super happy working against solid requirements.
👤 barrysaunders
third option is to go and work somewhere that builds software that helps people make product decisions - think a Dovetail, Figma, Atlassian etc. Your perspective will make you an effective engineering leader!