A collection of learning paths for self-directed engineers, technical PMs, and engineering managers who want to develop product engineering skills — owning outcomes, not just outputs, and shaping what gets built, not just how.
Each track is a transition journey. Pick the one that matches where you're coming from.
Are you an IC or a manager?
├── Manager → Engineering Manager track
└── IC → Are you at an early-stage startup without a dedicated PM?
├── Yes → Founding Engineer track
└── No → Is your background primarily engineering, product, or design?
├── Engineering → Staff Engineer track
├── Product management → Technical PM track
└── Design → Designer track
If you're between two tracks, read both READMEs and pick the one whose "Where you are" column matches most closely.
| Track | You are... | The transition |
|---|---|---|
| Staff Engineer | A staff eng with strong technical depth | Technical depth → product ownership |
| Founding Engineer | An early-stage startup engineer | Reactive execution → deliberate product co-ownership |
| Technical PM | A PM with an engineering background | Product frameworks → technical agency |
| Designer | A designer with strong craft | Design handoff → shipped product ownership |
| Engineering Manager | An EM accountable for delivery | Delivery accountability → outcome accountability |
Cross-track deep dives. Read these alongside a track or on their own.
- Product Sense — the 7-step framework, template, and worked examples
- User Research — how to run user interviews and turn observations into product decisions
- Product Strategy — understanding strategy, shaping it as an IC, and thinking in bets
- Pricing & Monetization — value metrics, packaging into tiers, and engineering the entitlement and billing layer
- System Design — connecting architecture, technical debt, and build-vs-buy decisions to product outcomes
- Execution — scoping, iterative shipping, and making decisions under pressure
- Metrics — defining success, instrumentation, and acting on data
- Experimentation — when to test, designing valid experiments, and deciding under inconclusive results
- Leadership — influence, organizational navigation, and growing your scope without formal authority
- Writing for Product — one-pagers and briefs, PRFAQs and decision docs, and writing to be read
- Prototyping with AI — prototyping before the spec, the prototype-to-production gap, and the judgment cheap building doesn't replace
- Interview Prep — running the product sense round as an engineer, and turning your story bank into interview narratives
Real, public product decisions analyzed through the 7-step product sense framework — the framework applied to bets that already played out.
- Figma's Multiplayer Bet — building real-time collaboration into the foundation of a design tool, against users who said they didn't want it
- Stripe's No-Breaking-Changes Bet — treating the API as infrastructure with rolling, per-account-pinned versions so existing integrations never break
- Slack's Off-to-the-Side Threads Bet — adding threaded conversations without breaking the channel-first model, by moving replies into a sidebar rather than nesting them inline
See case-studies/README.md for how these are built, read, and sourced.
Curated lists with annotations — books, talks, and papers worth your time.
Ready-to-copy templates pulled from the tracks and topics — for when you want the fill-in document without reading the module first.
See templates/README.md for what each one is for and where it comes from.
Each track has a syllabus (README.md) that explains who it's for, what the transition looks like, and the phases of the journey. Every track includes:
- Transition timeline — phase-by-phase roadmap with observable milestones and danger signs
- Track modules — role-specific lessons that turn the transition into concrete behaviors
- Story bank — a template and worked examples for telling your transition story in interviews and promotion packets
- Product sense — the role-specific lens for developing and applying product judgment
Recommended path: start with the track README.md, use the transition timeline and self-assessments to locate your phase, work through the track modules in order, then use the story bank to capture evidence of the transition. Each track also has a capstone — one end-to-end project that applies all three modules and produces artifacts that fill the story bank.
The topics/ layer is shared across tracks — deep dives that multiple tracks link into rather than duplicate.
If you're reading by topic rather than by track, a good sequence is:
- User Research
- Product Sense
- Metrics
- Experimentation
- Execution
- Product Strategy
- Pricing & Monetization
- System Design
- Leadership
- Writing for Product
Working through a track with other people? See study-groups.md — how to run any track as a 6–8 week reading group, with a weekly schedule and per-track reading orders.
Contributions are welcome. Start with CONTRIBUTING.md for the kinds of changes that fit this project. See ROADMAP.md for what's planned. Questions and study-group threads belong in Discussions.
This project is available under the CC BY 4.0 License.