Product Engineering

The old divide between “frontend” and “backend” engineers doesn’t describe how most modern software gets built anymore.

UI engineers ship end-to-end product flows. Backend and systems engineers work closer to user journeys or go deeper into platforms, infrastructure, and ML. AI-enhanced teams shift the focus from “writing code” to “shipping products,” letting smaller groups move faster with copilots and LLMs.

This isn’t just about web apps. The same shift is happening in backend systems, infrastructure, data platforms, and authorization services.

Product Engineers, Explained

Product Engineers work backwards from the product experience to the technologies that enable it. They think across APIs, data models, UX, infrastructure, and everything in between to create a cohesive product.

They don’t need to be deep experts in every layer. Instead, they build broad understanding and strong instincts for which tools to apply to build the right thing, at the right time.

Some qualities of a great Product Engineer:

• Iterative They value iteration and incremental correctness. They’d rather ship, learn from customers, and adjust than build in a silo for months.
• Customer focused
  They’re not afraid to talk to customers and operators and bring that context into their work. In larger companies, they partner closely with Product Managers, Support, and Customer Success to turn insights into better products.
• Pragmatic
  They see technology choices as a means to an end. The latest framework, database, or queue doesn’t matter if no one uses the product. They’re willing to simplify and remove tools that no longer serve the product.

Product vs. Platform

Product Engineers focus on features and experiences that solve end-user problems. Platform Engineers focus on the infrastructure, services, and workflows that support those product teams.

Platform teams:

• Build or buy tooling that makes product teams more effective and happier.
• Own shared services like identity, authorization, observability, CI/CD, and environments.
• Make high-leverage decisions so product teams can move fast safely.

This used to be a luxury for very large companies. Today, even small teams can benefit from a focused platform function once they hit a certain level of complexity.

Fantastic Product Engineers and Where to Find Them

Most startups say they want “fullstack engineers,” but they usually need Product Engineers. The best Product Engineers tend to share a few traits:

• They have a passion for building high-quality experiences, whether that’s a UI, CLI, API, or developer platform.
• They have a constant drive to learn and explore new ideas, tools, and patterns.
• They’re creators who take pride in their work and are willing to stand behind it.

You’ll see that in their portfolio or past work. They’ll have concrete examples: products, features, SDKs, services, or systems they can walk you through end to end.

They understand the fundamentals of the platforms they work on:

• HTTP and browsers.
• CLIs and terminals.
• Mobile platforms.
• Distributed systems, queues, and data stores.

Frameworks and tools are secondary. What matters is their ability to use those tools to build a great product.

Great Product Engineers don’t stop at “it compiles” or “the UI renders”:

• They think through real user and operator journeys and edge cases.
• They consider offline and poor connectivity, retries, limits, and failure modes.
• They care about latency, resilience, and how the system behaves under load and incident.

Product Engineers reflect where modern software is going.

Especially with AI and increasingly complex systems, we need developers who do more than just write code. We need people who see the whole system, work across layers, and focus relentlessly on delivering exceptional products to real users.