About the event
Three tech talks, open conversations with Manchester engineers, and a trip to the pub afterwards.
Product engineering is becoming a defining capability in modern teams. Engineers are being asked to think beyond delivery, influence product decisions, and use tools like AI to create real outcomes, not just ship features.
This event brought together the Manchester engineering community to explore:
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What product engineering actually looks like in practice
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How AI fits into day-to-day engineering work (beyond the hype)
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How engineers are upskilling and moving closer to product
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What this shift means for long-term career progression
⭐️ FAQs:
What is product engineering?
Product engineering is an approach where engineers combine strong technical execution with an understanding of users, product goals and business outcomes. Product engineers help shape what gets built, not just how it’s built.
Why is product engineering becoming more important?
As AI reduces the cost of building software, the real challenge becomes deciding what to build and why. Engineers who understand user problems and product outcomes are increasingly valuable.
How is AI affecting engineering roles?
AI is accelerating development speed, which places greater emphasis on judgement, product understanding and problem definition rather than just code production.
Do companies need to hire product engineers?
Not necessarily. Many organisations already have engineers capable of working this way, but they need the right environment, context and skill development.
What skills define a strong product engineer?
• Technical craft
• Product thinking
• Comfort with ambiguity
• User empathy
• Ownership and autonomy
• Cross-functional collaboration
Key takeaways
⭐️ 1. Engineers are moving closer to product decisions
One of the strongest themes was how engineering roles are evolving from implementation to influence.
In traditional delivery models, engineers were often involved after product decisions had already been made. Today, many teams are involving engineers much earlier in the process.
This allows engineers to contribute technical insight when defining solutions, not just building them.
What this shift looks like in practice:
• Engineers contributing to problem definition, not just solutions
• Technical insight influencing product trade-offs early
• Cross-functional collaboration between product, design and engineering
• Engineers participating in experimentation and product discovery
The result is stronger alignment between technical implementation and product outcomes, allowing teams to move faster and build more meaningful solutions.
“The shift isn’t just about writing code anymore. Engineers are increasingly part of the conversation about what should be built and why.”
⭐️ 2. Product engineering blends technical craft with product thinking
The concept of the Product Engineer is becoming more common across modern software teams.
Rather than describing a completely new role, it reflects a mindset where engineers combine deep technical expertise with an understanding of users, product goals and business context.
High-impact product engineers normallly show:
Strong technical foundations: Clean, maintainable code and strong system design.
User awareness: Understanding how features influence real user behaviour.
Ownership: Taking responsibility for outcomes, not just tasks.
Cross-functional thinking: Collaborating closely with product managers and designers.
Comfort with ambiguity: Navigating problems that don’t yet have clear solutions.
This shift allows engineers to contribute to what gets built, not just how it’s built.
⭐️ 3. The real challenge is deciding what to build
A recurring theme we're seeing is how modern development tools and AI are changing the nature of engineering work.
With AI-assisted development tools accelerating the speed of building software, the bottleneck is no longer writing code.
Instead, the real challenge is deciding which problems are worth solving.
- AI accelerates development but increases the importance of judgement and prioritisation.
- Product engineers play a key role in defining the right problem before building solutions.
- Teams benefit from rapid experimentation and small iterations rather than large up-front builds.
- Understanding user behaviour and product impact is now as important as technical implementation.
“When building becomes cheap, the hard problem isn’t writing code. It’s knowing what to build, and for whom.”
⭐️ 4. Architecture decisions should support product outcomes
Another key discussion point focused on how system architecture should evolve alongside product needs.
Engineering teams often debate monoliths vs. microservices, but now we're seeing how architecture decisions should follow product requirements, not trends.
Key lessons:
- Avoid premature architectural complexity.
- Design systems that support experimentation and iteration.
- Focus architecture decisions around business capabilities and user needs.
- Allow systems to evolve gradually rather than forcing large structural changes.
Teams that treat architecture as a product decision rather than just technical, tend to maintain better development velocity.
⭐️ 5. Hiring and defining the Product Engineer role
Many hiring challenges stem from unclear role definitions.
Companies often search for “software engineers” while actually expecting engineers who demonstrate ownership, product awareness and decision-making capability.
This misalignment can lead to frustration for both employers and candidates.
Reframing the role around product engineering principles often improves hiring outcomes.
Clear expectations for modern engineering roles include:
- Ownership of problems rather than isolated tasks.
- Comfort with ambiguity and experimentation.
- Collaboration with product teams.
- Understanding the user and business context behind features.
This shift is helping businesses attract engineers who want to work closer to product outcomes.
⭐️ 6. Developing product engineering capability internally
Organisations often already have engineers capable of operating as product engineers.
The challenge is creating the environment that allows those capabilities to show.
Strategies engineering leaders are using include:
- Involving engineers earlier in product discovery.
- Encouraging experimentation and hypothesis testing.
- Providing greater ownership of product areas.
- Creating shared goals across product and engineering teams.
- Developing product engineering capability internally allows organisations to scale without relying solely on external hiring.
“The real work isn’t hiring product engineers. It’s developing that capability in the engineers you already have.”
⭐️ The future of product engineering
One message is consistent: the role of engineers is expanding.
Technical excellence remains key, but the engineers creating the most impact today are those who combine technical skill, product thinking and strong collaboration.
As software development continues to speed up, the ability to understand users, shape problems and deliver meaningful outcomes will only become more valuable.
The rise of product engineering reflects a broader shift in how modern technology teams build software, and how engineers contribute to the success of the products they create.
Guest speakers
Darren Shaw
Principal Software Engineer @ Autotrader UK
Darren is a Principal
Alongside Zein, Darren explored what changes when engineers take on product responsibility, the lessons learned along the way, and how product thinking shapes technical decision-making in practice.
Zein Aji
Senior Software Developer @ Autotrader UK
Zein is a Senior Software Engineer at Autotrader, where they work on complex marketplace challenges that sit at the intersection of engineering, product and user impact.
With deep experience in building and evolving large-scale systems, Zein navigated the realities of acting as product engineers, balancing technical trade-offs with commercial priorities, user needs and measurable outcomes.
In Zein & Darren's talk, “Sorting Cars at Autotrader: What We’ve Learned Acting as Product Engineers”, they shared how they designed, validated and implemented an intelligent sorting system for AutoTrader’s marketplace.
James Wright
Senior Software Engineer @ Prolific
James is a Senior Software Engineer at Prolific, where he works in product-led teams building and evolving software that directly shapes user outcomes. He’s passionate about writing maintainable, efficient code and is also a keen writer and public speaker.
With a background rooted in engineering-first environments, James has experienced first-hand the shift towards product-first thinking, moving beyond pure delivery to influencing decisions, collaborating cross-functionally, and focusing on impact over output.
In his talk, “From Engineering-First to Product-First: a Mindset Shift”, James shared practical reflections on what that transition looks like in reality, the changes in mindset, the challenges along the way, and what it means for engineers navigating modern software roles.
Andy Norton
VP Engineering @ Flipdish
Andy is an experienced engineering leader who has guided multiple teams through the transition towards product engineering. He works at the intersection of engineering craft, product thinking and organisational development, helping teams move beyond pure delivery and towards deeper user impact.
Having navigated this shift several times, Andy has seen first-hand that the real challenge isn’t simply renaming roles or restructuring teams, it’s developing product engineering capability within the engineers you already have.
In his talk, “Mapping a Product Engineering Path”, Andy explored how to anchor teams around user needs, identify where product engineering capability matters most within your system, and turn that understanding into a practical development plan. He also touched on how AI is accelerating change across engineering teams, and why gaining situational awareness before hiring or reorganising is often the smartest first step.
Craig Aspinall
Product Engineer @ PortSwigger
Craig is a Product Engineer at PortSwigger, where he helps shape a culture built on trust, high standards and meaningful impact. His background spans developer, CTO, founder and mentor, giving him a broad perspective on how engineering roles evolve as companies grow.
Deeply engaged with the changing landscape of AI, Craig believes AI isn’t a novelty but a new professional skillset engineers need to embrace thoughtfully.
In “Product Engineering: Where Have You Been All My Life?”, Craig shared a candid reflection on a frustrating hiring campaign that exposed a deeper issue: the problem wasn’t the talent market, it was the role definition. He explored why “software engineer” wasn’t attracting the right profile, what changed when they reframed the role as product engineer, and how naming the role properly transformed recruitment conversations in the age of AI.
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