The docs have a bit of a rough edge because the author is Korean, but the examples are quite good and took me maybe 2-3 hours to work through.
Once everything clicked (quite shortly in), I was a bit blown away by everything "just working" as pure TypeScript; I can only describe the DX as "smooth" compared to Zod because now it's TypeScript.
To me "Product-minded" engineers defined here are mostly engineers who has the willingness to go "above and beyond".
Some may have this willingness because of their intrinsic nature. Some may have had this willingness but it slowly eroded because of many external factors (i.e. not getting recognized or compensated for their "above and beyond" work). Some simply have other priorities in their life (which I understand 100%, I suspect I'll be in the same boat if I had kids).
I've always seen myself as a "product-minded engineer". However, recently I'm struggling with keeping that mindset. Part of it is because of external factors and part of it is because I've also started to prioritize my personal life more. I do recognize that this is not black and white but rather a spectrum but it is so much harder to be fully engaged to a product when you are not giving it your 110%. :P
That being said I also believe it's also up to the company to foster and reward this kind of engineers, instead of just asking engineers to be a "product engineers"
I relate to your point of view and vented my frustration at the article.
You mention companies fostering and rewarding and I wholeheartedly agree. But not just engineers, anything that creates value for the customer.
I believe that the best products have the whole mission aligned and going to the process of analyzing, testing, implementing, monitoring... then you don’t need superstars, you just need good people with a clear positioning and direction. I think it’s a simpler recipe than fishing for diamonds.
Getting an ‘awesome product guy’ cause you read it in a post is not going to create a magical unicorn that you can ride to VC-Land.
You need a clear positioning of your company towards the product and the users and then you don’t need John Carmack, Steve Jobs and Carnegie in your tram to launch your new CRM, you just need to listen to your users and perhaps disregard a lot of blog posts along the way.
You can go above and beyond and still build something nobody wants. It can be a perfectly architected software unicorn and it will hurt even more when nobody uses it.... because they don’t need it.
