The Product-Minded Software Engineer

I've seen another article like this, and it just seems like nonsense.

I mean great, if you can hire an engineer who is both incredibly competent at his job and can do product's job too, then great.

By the same token, if you hire an engineer who wants to do his/her job and then sweep your floors at the end of the day, that's cool too. But don't go writing blog posts about it like it's some special thing.

There's a very natural division of labor between coding and product. Good product work takes tons of research, meeting users, watching users use the product, awareness and coordination with the larger product plan. I can't imagine many engineers really have time to do their job well and do product well.