How to work better with Product, as an Engineer with Ebi Atawodi

How do you get product and engineering to truly operate as one team? Today, I’m joined by Ebi Atawodi, Director of Product Management at YouTube Studio, and a former product leader at Netflix and Uber. Ebi was the first PM I partnered with after stepping into engineering management at Uber, and we both learned a lot together. We share lessons from our time at Uber and discuss how strong product-engineering partnerships drive better outcomes, grow teams, foster cultures of ownership, and unlock agency, innovation, and trust. In this episode, we cover: • Why you need to earn a new team's trust before trying to drive change • How practices like the "business scorecard" and “State of the Union” updates helped communicate business goals and impact to teams at Uber • How understanding business impact leads to more ideas and collaboration • A case for getting to know your team as people, not just employees • Why junior employees should have a conversation with a recruiter every six months • Ebi’s approach to solving small problems with the bet that they’ll unlock larger, more impactful solutions • Why investing time in trust and connection isn't at odds with efficiency • The qualities of the best engineers—and why they’re the same traits that make people successful in any role • The three-pronged definition of product: business impact, feasibility, and customer experience • Why you should treat your career as a project • And more! — Brought to by: •⁠ WorkOS — The modern identity platform for B2B SaaS https://workos.com/ •⁠ The Software Engineer’s Guidebook: Written by me (Gergely) – now out in audio form as well https://engguidebook.com/#buy — The Pragmatic Engineer deepdives relevant for this episode: • The product-minded software engineer https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/the-product-minded-engineer/ • Working with Product Managers as an Engineering Manager or Engineer https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/working-with-product-managers • Working with Product Managers: advice from PMs https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/working-with-product-managers-advice-from-pms • What is Growth Engineering? https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/what-is-growth-engineering — Where to find Ebi Atawodi: • X: https://x.com/ebiatawodi • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ebiatawodi/ Where to find Gergely Orosz: • X: https://x.com/GergelyOrosz • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gergelyorosz/ • Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/gergely.pragmaticengineer.com • Newsletter and blog: https://www.pragmaticengineer.com/ — In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Intro (02:19) Engineering and Product working together: a rocky start (12:35) Working as a startup inside a large company (30:24) Product-minded engineers (36:00) Getting headcount for Engineering (43:58) The importance of a "vision" and meeting people (50:44) Traits of standout software engineers engineers look like? (1:06:54) The value of a great PM (1:11:50) Play the long game — See the transcript and other references from the episode at https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/podcast — Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email [email protected].