What is Product Engineering?

Episode 1 of the Product Engineering Podcast with James Charlesworth. What does product engineering actually mean, and how is it different from traditional software delivery? In this first episode, James explores the shift from roadmap-driven engineering to an approach where engineers share responsibility for product outcomes, not just delivering requirements. Using an example from an email marketing platform, the episode compares two ways of working. In a roadmap-driven model, product managers define a feature and engineers are responsible for building it predictably. In a product engineering model, the whole team starts with the outcome they want to create, explores different solutions and uses evidence to decide what to build next. The central question is simple: after a team ships something significant, does anybody go back and find out whether it produced the intended result?