Become an Epic Product Engineer

Kent C. Dodds

Become an Epic Product Engineer is Kent C. Dodds's interview podcast about skills that stay valuable as AI takes on more implementation: product engineering - blending technical depth with product judgment, user empathy, and problem clarity. Each episode is a long-form conversation with a guest who has shipped real software and cares about building the right thing before making it right. You get full audio, transcripts, structured show notes, homework (one concrete action to try), and links from the conversation. Canonical home for the show and every episode page: https://www.epicproduct.engineer/become-an-epic-product-engineer-podcast New episodes publish on Wednesdays (America/Denver). Video is added on Transistor for supported podcast apps when available. Complements Better with Kent - Kent's solo series on durable skills for people who ship software.

  1. User outcomes, workflow design, and biotech software - product engineering with Swizec Teller

    2 days ago

    User outcomes, workflow design, and biotech software - product engineering with Swizec Teller

    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 placement, success metrics, and how to widen the pit of success for people who are just trying to do their jobs. (00:00) - Intro (01:04) - Swizec's path from startups to biotech (02:18) - Learning a domain you didn't grow up in (05:14) - Widening the pit of success (09:46) - Introducing workflow changes without friction (12:11) - Feature flags and early feedback loops (16:11) - How to find real user needs (20:02) - What support tickets tell you about users (22:55) - Reading friction as a product signal (24:51) - Automation and what it changes for users (26:58) - Where to place new capabilities (29:26) - Breaking big ideas into shippable pieces (33:31) - Defining success before you ship (37:27) - Software is valuable for what users can now do Swizec brings a perspective that broadens the season in a useful way. Instead of developer-facing tools, he has spent years building software that supports biotech, healthcare, and other real-world businesses where the user is trying to get work done, not admire your architecture. That makes the conversation very grounded in observation: shadowing experts, noticing workaround behavior, understanding existing habits, and putting new capabilities exactly where people already look. The second half of the episode turns that into a practical product loop. Swizec and Kent talk about defining success before you ship, measuring whether a workflow actually improved, and balancing long-range vision with the adjacent possible of what today's technology can support. The result is a strong reminder that software is valuable because of the user's new "superpower," not because the implementation was clever. Homework Spend one hour watching users use your software.If you do not have direct access to users, ask your manager or PM to connect you with someone internally, or watch a partner or friend try a real workflow while you take notes.Treat every workaround or confusing step you see as a potential product opportunity.Resources Swizec TellerSwizec newsletterSwizec Teller - GitHubGuest: Swizec Teller GitHub: @Swizec𝕏: @swizecHost: Kent C. Dodds Website: kentcdodds.com𝕏: @kentcdoddsGitHub: @kentcdoddsYouTube: Kent C. DoddsPodcast: epicproduct.engineerSee on Epic Product Engineer

    40 min
  2. User empathy, feedback loops, and what not to build - product engineering with Jack Ryan

    27 May

    User empathy, feedback loops, and what not to build - product engineering with Jack Ryan

    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/engineering overlap, and practical ways engineers can tighten feedback loops without outsourcing judgment to users. Jack brings a useful split perspective: early UK proptech startup experience where engineering success and company success were basically the same thing, followed by years of technical leadership at Intercom without people management. That combination shows up throughout the episode in how he talks about responsibility, ambiguity, and what still matters when agents can generate more code faster. A big theme is reframing success. Instead of celebrating "I shipped the ticket on time," Jack argues product engineers look back at whether the thing they shipped is being used, whether customers are happy, and whether the work connected to business outcomes. Metrics help start those conversations, but he is skeptical of sweating small week-to-week movements on a single number when qualitative signals and customer conversations often tell you more. The close is especially practical: engineers can use their craft to improve product judgment, not only implementation - by wiring up real customer feedback channels (Slack feeds, sales-call snippets, forward-deployed engineer patterns) and learning to ask *why* people want something before deciding what to build. Homework Find good sources of customer feedback in your org (support, sales, success, research, or forward-deployed engineers).Use engineering to put that feedback somewhere you will actually see it regularly - wire up a Slack channel, dashboard, or digest so the signal can "wash over you" the way Jack describes.Practice asking *why* a customer wants something before treating their feature request as the spec. Resources Jack Ryan - Intercom BlogIntercomrequisite (Intercom open source) Guest: Jack Ryan Company: IntercomGitHub: @jmfryan𝕏: @jmfryan Host: Kent C. Dodds Website: kentcdodds.com𝕏: @kentcdoddsGitHub: @kentcdoddsYouTube: Kent C. DoddsPodcast: epicproduct.engineer See on Epic Product Engineer

    53 min
  3. Primitives, agent UX, and Executor - product engineering with Rhys Sullivan

    20 May

    Primitives, agent UX, and Executor - product engineering with Rhys Sullivan

    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 the right move even when agents make speed feel free. Rhys has an unusually current perspective on product engineering because he is working right at the edge of the agent tooling shift. The conversation starts with his recent work on Vercel Domains and then moves into Executor, where the challenge is no longer just implementing integrations, but choosing the abstractions that make a system composable, safe, and pleasant to use over time. What makes the episode strong is how often it comes back to product judgment instead of novelty. Rhys and Kent talk about finding the right primitives, observing how other products solve hard UX problems, resisting the urge to ship every request immediately, and building systems that help agents without letting them become dangerously "helpful." Homework Create a dedicated notes channel or system where you save examples of products doing something well.Use those notes as reusable product input: when you need to build a flow later, pull the examples back up instead of starting from scratch.Resources ExecutorRhys Sullivan - siteExecutor - GitHubOpenCodeGuest: Rhys Sullivan Company: ExecutorGitHub: @RhysSullivan𝕏: @RhysSullivanHost: Kent C. Dodds Website: kentcdodds.com𝕏: @kentcdoddsGitHub: @kentcdoddsYouTube: Kent C. DoddsPodcast: epicproduct.engineerSee on Epic Product Engineer

    41 min
  4. Customer research, desire, and Sales Safari - product engineering with Alex Hillman

    13 May

    Customer research, desire, and Sales Safari - product engineering with Alex Hillman

    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 business priorities, and why AI makes human judgment, trust, and synthesis more important rather than less. Alex brings a product and marketing lens that fits this season perfectly: great products do not just solve technical problems, they help the right people recognize that you understand their world. The conversation starts with finding an audience and quickly turns into a practical way to build product sense inside a company: learn how customers describe themselves, observe where they gather, listen for the language they use, and speak from their priorities instead of your own taste. The second half gets into Sales Safari, Stacking the Bricks' observational research practice. Alex explains why surveys and interviews can miss important signal, what to look for in real conversations, and how notes on jargon, pain, worldview, and recommendations can turn scattered internet conversations into useful product understanding. The through-line is simple and demanding: reduce the distance between you and the people you serve so your software, messaging, and decisions feel anticipated rather than manipulative. Homework The next time coworkers or product teammates disagree about direction, step back and observe the conversation.Ask: who is this disagreement in service of? Is it serving the customer, the decision maker, the loudest person, or someone else?Practice this once a day or once a week, then use the patterns you notice to decide what you should contribute. Resources Stacking the Bricks30x500The Tiny MBAThe Mom TestAlex Hillman on X Guest: Alex Hillman Company: Stacking the BricksGitHub: @alexknowshtml𝕏: @alexhillman Host: Kent C. Dodds Website: kentcdodds.com𝕏: @kentcdoddsGitHub: @kentcdoddsYouTube: Kent C. DoddsPodcast: epicproduct.engineer See on Epic Product Engineer

    1hr 12min
  5. Speed, prioritization, and maintainability — product engineering with Julius Marminge

    6 May

    Speed, prioritization, and maintainability — product engineering with Julius Marminge

    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-built software maintainable over time. Julius is building right in the middle of one of the fastest-moving product categories in software, and that gives this episode a useful tension: everything feels possible, but that does not mean everything belongs in the product. The conversation covers the shift from one-agent-at-a-time coding to orchestration, why T3 Code focuses so much on a fast app layer, and how Julius thinks about what should live in the core product versus forks, plugins, or future work. The deeper lesson is about judgment under speed. Julius and Kent keep returning to the same idea from different angles: when agents can generate a lot of implementation quickly, the real work is deciding what is worth building, what will age well, and what future decisions you might accidentally box yourself out of. Homework Take a step back and look at your product from the whole picture, not just the slice you currently touch.Before prioritizing a feature, ask whether it keeps the product maintainable long-term and whether it fits the job to be done for your users. Resources T3 CodeT3 ChatJulius Marminge — GitHubOpenCode Guest: Julius Marminge GitHub: @juliusmarminge𝕏: @jullerino Host: Kent C. Dodds Website: kentcdodds.com𝕏: @kentcdoddsGitHub: @kentcdoddsYouTube: Kent C. DoddsPodcast: epicproduct.engineer See on Epic Product Engineer

    42 min
  6. Stakeholder empathy, UX, and durable product skills — product engineering with Jamon Holmgren

    29 Apr

    Stakeholder empathy, UX, and durable product skills — product engineering with Jamon Holmgren

    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 learning as the job shifts up the stack. Jamon brings a useful mix to this conversation: founder of Infinite Red, longtime consultant, React Native specialist, and now indie game developer. That perspective makes the episode unusually practical. He has spent years watching where projects go wrong when product thinking is weak: bad requirements, unclear stakeholder alignment, UX details nobody owned, and engineers optimizing the wrong thing too early. The thread through the whole episode is durability. Product engineering is not just about shipping faster with agents or getting better at a specific tool. It is about understanding people, shaping better requirements, recognizing when the human side of the workflow matters more than the code, and making decisions that keep paying off as the technology changes around you. Homework Sit down with a non-technical person and watch them try to use a feature you built.Write down every hesitation, workaround, double-click, or confusing step you notice, then use that list to reprioritize what you fix next. Resources Infinite RedJamon Holmgren — siteNight Shift Agentic WorkflowGunship Origins on Steam Guest: Jamon Holmgren Company: Infinite RedGitHub: @jamonholmgren𝕏: @jamonholmgren Host: Kent C. Dodds Website: kentcdodds.com𝕏: @kentcdoddsGitHub: @kentcdoddsYouTube: Kent C. DoddsPodcast: epicproduct.engineer See on Epic Product Engineer

    56 min
  7. Watch users, fix systems, and design for humanity — product engineering with Don Norman

    22 Apr

    Watch users, fix systems, and design for humanity — product engineering with Don Norman

    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 talk about timing and failed products, cross-functional product teams, what AI changes for software builders, and why Don now cares most about designing for humanity, not only usability. Don's career makes this episode unusually wide-ranging: early computing, human error, aviation safety, Unix, Apple product decisions, digital cameras, color TV, and the long arc from usable products to systems that shape society. The through-line is straightforward but demanding: if you want better products, watch what people actually do, notice the workarounds they no longer complain about, and treat clusters of small usability problems like real product debt. The second half brings that thinking into the present. Don and Kent talk about AI coding tools as force multipliers that still need direction, architecture, and supervision, then zoom out to Design for a Better World and the Don Norman Design Award. The result is a conversation about product sense that spans decades without feeling dated: the tools change, but the responsibility to understand people, systems, and consequences does not. Homework Spend time watching people do real work before you ask them for solutions; observation reveals the hidden setup, workarounds, and friction they now assume are just "how it works."After a release, step back and fix clusters of small usability issues as a system instead of waiting for one confusing bug to become catastrophic.Treat AI as a force multiplier you must instruct and supervise; stay responsible for the problem definition, architecture, and review. Resources Don Norman Design Award (DNDA)Design for a Better WorldThe Design of Everyday ThingsNielsen Norman Group — Don NormanUnited Nations Sustainable Development Goals Guest: Don Norman Company: Don Norman Design Award (DNDA) Host: Kent C. Dodds Website: kentcdodds.com𝕏: @kentcdoddsGitHub: @kentcdoddsYouTube: Kent C. DoddsPodcast: epicproduct.engineer See on Epic Product Engineer

    1hr 16min
  8. Human factors, product debt, and industrial design — product engineering with Will King

    15 Apr

    Human factors, product debt, and industrial design — product engineering with Will King

    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 implementation. Will's path runs from designing bucket trucks to self-taught software engineering, education products, and database tooling, and that background gives this episode a distinctive lens: software is still a product people use with bodies, habits, emotions, and mental models. The conversation makes product sense concrete through examples like onboarding timing, course complexity, support workflows, and the small confidence signals that separate stable-feeling products from merely functional ones. You'll hear why watching users work keeps surfacing across this series, how to tell broken experiences from merely unpopular ones, why user feedback usually improves polish more than strategy, and how product engineers can stay valuable in an agent-heavy future by understanding both the user and the constraints of the software medium. Homework Use AI agents more for gathering than executing: explore multiple solution paths, adjacent domains, and missing context before you ship.Give agents richer context like user demographics, constraints, and likely mental models, then use your own judgment to evaluate what comes back.Slow down long enough to question assumptions before implementation; use AI as a creativity and critique tool, not just a code accelerator.Resources Will King - siteDeploy Empathy (Michele Hansen)The Mom Test (Rob Fitzpatrick)Interface Craft (Josh Puckett)Guest: Will King Company: Crunchy DataGitHub: @wking-io𝕏: @willkingHost: Kent C. Dodds Website: kentcdodds.com𝕏: @kentcdoddsGitHub: @kentcdoddsYouTube: Kent C. DoddsPodcast: epicproduct.engineerSee on Epic Product Engineer

    1hr 2min
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About

Become an Epic Product Engineer is Kent C. Dodds's interview podcast about skills that stay valuable as AI takes on more implementation: product engineering - blending technical depth with product judgment, user empathy, and problem clarity. Each episode is a long-form conversation with a guest who has shipped real software and cares about building the right thing before making it right. You get full audio, transcripts, structured show notes, homework (one concrete action to try), and links from the conversation. Canonical home for the show and every episode page: https://www.epicproduct.engineer/become-an-epic-product-engineer-podcast New episodes publish on Wednesdays (America/Denver). Video is added on Transistor for supported podcast apps when available. Complements Better with Kent - Kent's solo series on durable skills for people who ship software.

Information

  • Creator
    Kent C. Dodds
  • Years Active
    2k
  • Episodes
    13
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Kent C. Dodds Tech LLC. All rights reserved.
  • Show Website
    Become an Epic Product Engineer

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