11 Comments
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Pawel Jozefiak's avatar

Great read, thanks for that! It strongly resonates with me, as I love Old good RPGs(although not fan of D&D, more of WH 1st and 2ed), but the idea is great!

I see myself as Generalist or Fixer. Or maybe both, or maybe one is sometimes MAIN and the other sub :D

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JP Chapleau's avatar

I'm a cleric of code because of the amount of profanity I use between idea, test, and final product.

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Nicholas Goolsby's avatar

As a software engineering student, I really appreciate this post and its insight into the cultures of different companies. Obviously, as I make my way into the workforce, my initial goal will be to learn as much as possible about anything and everything. However, I would eventually like to become a “product-hybrid”. If you had to start over, what are 3 things you would do to reach this goal?

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Drew Hoskins's avatar

Just knowing you might want to be a Product Hybrid will put you ahead of me.

My best advice is to ask "why" a certain feature is important or a certain requirement is necessary. All the time. Search for ground truth. Sometimes, engineers won't give you good answers, initially, but you can challenge them on that and ask to push deeper.

Or ask the local PM.

Or ask to tag along for customer conversations.

Or read my forthcoming book, The Product-Minded Engineer (when it comes out). =)

But also, keep in mind that you're likely to need to deepen your system thinking as well. Keep the system and the users in balance, like yin and yang.

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Mert Bozkir's avatar

thank you Drew, I guess I'm level 1 Junior Necromancer! 🧙‍♂️

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Arakib's avatar

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Austin's avatar

Is General-Architect a class? Haha I feel that’s closer to me.

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denver chagrin's avatar

👏👏👏

I know zilch about D&D or software engineering - still enjoyed it nonetheless.

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Mason Roberts's avatar

When you’re tired, so tired of beating it with a hammer. You pause, wiping the sweat from your brow, leaning in, hand on hip, you bump the table with a huff. You watch amazed as the code rocks gently and falls, unlocking the past two hours. Gritting your teeth you put lay the hammer gently on the table. Smoke still wisps off the anvil as you turn toward the coffee pot.

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Tiana's avatar

Keep it up babe

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