Build the Right Thing: Product Engineering (Part 1) — Kent C. Dodds, EpicProduct.engineer

The line of attendees waiting outside becomes the workshop's live product idea: an app called Just Get In the Workshop. Kent C. Dodds uses that immediate frustration to practice deciding whether a problem deserves a software solution. Before the exercise, he explains why faster implementation changes the value of an engineer's work. Agents can help hit more targets, but choosing the useful target still requires judgment. Product engineers connect customer needs to data models, workflows, constraints, observability, and the smallest useful slice of a system. Dodds draws on conversations with other builders to show how understanding users changes architectural choices, while accepting a ticket without that context can produce technically polished work that misses the point. The room then applies The Mom Test to its conference entry idea. Questions about whether somebody would use an app invite compliments and speculation. Questions about the last time the problem happened, what the person did instead, and what the workaround cost reveal behavior. Dodds connects that evidence to how much engineering effort a feature deserves. An experiment needs a different investment from a capability essential to the business. Early prototypes and watching people use them keep the feedback loop open after the initial idea has been validated. Audience questions explore hiring for product judgment, collaboration with product managers, and engineering responsibilities as teams grow. The first part establishes the discovery habits and technical ownership that guide the next stages of the workshop. Speaker info: - https://x.com/kentcdodds - https://kentcdodds.com - https://www.epicproduct.engineer/ Timestamps: 0:00 - Arrival and introduction 3:40 - An educator's changing role 6:14 - Durable skills and engineering judgment 10:31 - Building the right thing 12:46 - Choosing a live example product 15:43 - Why faster implementation can miss the goal 21:09 - Product engineers and product managers 25:21 - Product context and architectural choices 28:18 - Creating good systems for agents 30:38 - Questions on MVPs, hiring, and collaboration 37:02 - Workshop frameworks and the entry app 38:27 - Practicing customer discovery 40:45 - Applying The Mom Test 46:10 - The cost of building without validation 49:06 - Closing the loop with early user feedback 51:10 - Questions on roles and team growth