Become an Epic Product Engineer

Kent talks with Michael Shimeles - Rasmic - about building products in the AI era without losing the engineering judgment that makes software useful. They cover AI consulting, why clients often ask for the wrong thing, how to push conversations back to the real problem, why simplicity is a product advantage, and why developers are more valuable when they combine technical skill with taste, domain...

Kent talks with Lucas Wargha , engineering manager at FamilySearch , about turning software engineers into product engineers: understanding mission and business outcomes, talking to real users across cultures, and stopping the assembly line of JIRA handoffs. They cover customer personas at global scale, the Gmail password-loading story as product-engineering thinking, owning epics end-to-end, crea...

Kent talks with Ruben Casas about building products again in the AI-agent era: why experienced engineers can now stay close to customers and code, how demos turn vague ideas into something people can react to, and why product judgment matters more as implementation gets cheaper. They cover Postman , MCP , agent-driven UI, prototypes, early user feedback, feature product-market fit, and the enginee...

Kent talks with Sean Roberts , engineer at PhotoShelter , about product engineering shaped by agency work and small teams: being the technical person in sales conversations early, planning with product judgment, and knowing when to speak up (and when to listen). They discuss why implementation skill still matters in the AI era, how to avoid "vibes-only" product calls, budgeting and sequencing work...

Kent talks with Grady Booch about what software engineering still means in the age of AI agents, why implementation is only one part of the work, and why human judgment remains central to building durable systems. They discuss software architecture, the limits of large language models, computable minds, product engineering across different risk and complexity levels, and the kind of curiosity that...

Kent talks with Swizec Teller about product engineering for software that serves real businesses and non-developer users: how to learn a domain you did not grow up in, how to spot hidden friction by watching people work, and why the best product work focuses on outcomes , not engineering puzzles. They talk through biotech , internal tooling, habits users build around buggy software, feature placem...

Kent talks with Jack Ryan , Principal Engineer at Intercom , about product engineering at scale: why implementation is only part of the job, how to broaden what you measure as success beyond shipping tickets, and why customer feedback is an input, not a product roadmap. They cover startup lessons from property tech, metrics vs. conversation, AI-era decision-making, performance trade-offs, PM/engin...

Kent talks with Rhys Sullivan about building Executor and thinking like a product engineer in the AI-agent era: how to design the right primitives , why agent experience is becoming its own product surface, and how to keep quality high when shipping has never been easier. They cover MCP , code mode, approvals, workspace scoping, docs and APIs as user experience, and why slowing down can still be t...

Kent talks with Alex Hillman of Stacking the Bricks about customer research, product fit, and the kind of product engineering that starts before implementation: understanding who you are serving, what they already believe, and how to make people feel understood instead of sold to. They cover audience selection, observational research, helping in public, aligning your work with customer and busines...

Kent talks with Julius Marminge about building T3 Code in the agent-orchestrator wave: why speed still matters, why fast shipping does not mean shipping every possible feature, and how product judgment becomes more important as parallel AI workflows make implementation cheap. They dig into dogfooding , core-product trade-offs, monetization pressure, customization vs defaults, and how to keep agent...

Kent talks with Jamon Holmgren about product engineering from a long-running consultancy lens: how working with clients, stakeholders, and non-technical users sharpens your product sense, and why those skills matter even more as implementation gets cheaper with AI. They cover React Native , consulting, game design, stakeholder failures, feedback loops, and what software builders need to keep learn...

Kent talks with Don Norman about why the core work of product engineering has not changed: watch people work, treat so-called user error as a design problem, and fix root causes instead of blaming symptoms. Don walks through a remarkable arc from electrical engineering and cognitive psychology to Three Mile Island , Xerox PARC , Apple , and the first use of user experience in a job title. They tal...

Kent talks with Will King about bringing an industrial design mindset into software: human factors , observing real users, and why good product engineering starts with caring enough to notice what frustrates people. They dig into product debt , support as a product superpower, pruning features without breaking trust, and how to use AI agents for exploration and critique instead of only faster impl...

Kent talks with Aaron D. Francis about product engineering : why ticket-taking implementation is losing ground to agents, what a vertical slice from UI to database really means, and how Aaron’s desktop app Solo came from a painful problem—not a feature spec. They go deep on scratch-your-own-itch products, separating agents from dev stacks, Jobs to Be Done , why users bring you solutions instead of...

Kent talks with Dillon Mulroy , Principal Engineer at Cloudflare , about Agent Experience and dogfooding AI platform work: how Cloudflare closes the loop between builders and customers, why observability and support are product superpowers, and how to stay disciplined when agents tempt you to ship huge diffs overnight. They go deep on watching users work, firehose social feedback, partnering with...

Kent talks with Wayne Allan (engineer, PM, and consultant) about product engineering in practice: why “building the thing right” only matters after you’re building the right thing , how to shorten feedback loops without six-month research theater, and why falling in love with the problem beats falling in love with your solution . They cover scrappy validation, talking to sales and support, the Kan...

Kent talks with Dax Raad about building OpenCode in a crowded coding-agent market: why dev tools are still a consumer-style product, how fast shipping can make good products feel worse, and what “product skill” actually looks like when agents remove friction from implementation. They dig into onboarding, progressive disclosure, listening across many user requests for the real pattern, and why slow...

Kent opens Become an Epic Product Engineer : why product engineering is the durable skill as AI takes on more implementation, what to expect from guest conversations and homework, and where to start in the catalog. (00:00) - Introducing Become an Epic Product Engineer (00:38) - The archer metaphor (00:52) - Knowing what to build (01:05) - Learning out loud with guests (01:18) - Product engineers v...