Navigate Ways of Working
Cheatsheet
Product-Engineering Interface
Who owns what in the space between product and engineering - ownership domains, the contested middle, escalation paths, and anti-patterns.
Product–Engineering Interface
Who owns what in the space between product strategy and code. The middle is a conversation, not a handoff.
Product owns the problem space · Engineering owns the solution space · The middle is a conversation
Product Owns
- What to build and in what order
- User/business problem definition
- Success criteria and metrics
- Release timing (when flags flip)
- Stakeholder communication
- Backlog content and priority
- ”What questions need answering” (analytics)
|
Engineering Owns
- How things get built
- Technical approach and architecture
- Engineering allocation (15–25%)
- Release capability (flags, rollback)
- Quality gates and CI/CD
- On-call and incident response
- ”How to instrument” (analytics)
The Contested Middle — Decided Together
Decision Area
Product’s Role
Engineering’s Role
Who Decides
Feasibility / solution design
Defines “what” and constraints
Presents options with trade-offs
Product chooses from options
Tech debt priority
Informed, not approval
Owns 15–25% allocation
Eng within allocation
Bug priority
Prioritises “works but users dislike”
Fixes broken behaviour from allocation
Conversation for grey areas
Build vs buy
Defines capability + constraints
Evaluates technically
Joint — Eng veto on tech risk, Product veto on cost
Spec writing
Problem statement + success criteria
Dev writes technical breakdown
Collaborate at refinement
Definition of done
Co-owns
Co-owns
Agreed once at org level
Analytics scope
What questions to answer
How to instrument, effort required
Negotiate on scope
Release timing
Decides when to go live
Confirms technical readiness
Product decides, Eng confirms
Escalation Path
| Situation | Resolution |
|---|---|
| PM and Lead Dev disagree on approach | Direct conversation between them |
| Still unresolved | Head of Product + Head of Eng |
| Priority conflict between squads | Head of Product arbitrates |
| Product vs Eng strategy tension | HoP + HoE weekly 1:1 |
| Fundamental disagreement at leadership | CTO / CEO (should be rare) |
The weekly HoP ↔ HoE 1:1 is the most important meeting in the org. Prevents surprises, aligns priorities, resolves tensions before they reach squads.
Anti-Patterns
✕Product treats engineering as a feature factory — all output, no tech health
✕Engineering treats product as an interruption — tech allocation creeps to 40%
✕PM writes technical specs (badly) or devs make product decisions (by default)
✕Discovering structural problems at code review instead of at design review
✕Leaders agree on everything (one is deferring, not advocating)
✕Leaders communicate through their reports instead of directly
✕Stakeholders go directly to developers with requests
See also: Team Structure & Roles and the Engineering Process for full details.