Engineers as Discovery Partners, Not Resources
Embed the tech lead in discovery so engineers own the why, not just the what
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~months to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 90%
Rather than running discovery with product and design and handing engineering a spec, Gautam brings her tech lead into user testing sessions, design jams and stakeholder planning conversations. The tech lead becomes an expert on why the work matters, then propagates that understanding to the rest of engineering. The result is sharper technical feasibility calls and implementations defined with greater clarity and precision — and it took a couple of years to build.
Origin
An evolution of CNN Digital's core platform squad process under Upasna Gautam, developed over roughly two years.
Core principles
- 01Think of your engineers as partners, not resources
- 02Feasibility judgments are only as good as the engineer's grasp of the user's pain
- 03The tech lead is the transmission mechanism — they teach the rest of the team
- 04Front-loading engineering context makes the whole delivery process more efficient
- 05This is a multi-year culture change, not a meeting-invite change
How to run it
- 1
Invite the tech lead to every discovery surface
Add the tech lead to user testing/working sessions, design jams, and editorial or stakeholder planning conversations — not just to the review at the end.
Pro tip Bring them to the sessions where users complain, not just the ones where users are polite.
- 2
Make them an expert on the why
The goal is not attendance but comprehension: the tech lead should be able to state why this work is happening and what the team is working towards at the same depth as the PM.
Pro tip Test the outcome by asking the tech lead to explain the user's pain point back to you unaided.
- 3
Have them teach it down the team
The tech lead passes the user understanding to the rest of engineering. The loop is: gather feedback from users, understand pain points, then share and teach it across the team.
Pro tip Make this an explicit expectation of the tech lead role, not a hope.
Watch out If the tech lead hoards the context, you have created a single point of failure rather than an informed team.
- 4
Let feasibility calls come back sharper
With the why internalized, engineers define the how with greater clarity and precision and can judge technical feasibility against real user need rather than a written requirement.
In the wild
Gautam embedded her tech lead into the product discovery process alongside her design lead — user testing sessions, design jams, editorial planning. He and the engineering team became experts on why the work was being done and what it was working towards.
→ Gautam calls it a game changer: engineers define the how with greater clarity and precision, and the tech lead cascaded the user knowledge across the rest of the engineering team.
Common mistakes
Treating engineering as a delivery resource
Handing engineers a finished spec strips them of the user context that makes feasibility trade-offs intelligent, and produces implementations that satisfy the ticket but not the need.
Expecting the shift to happen in a quarter
Gautam notes this evolution took a couple of years. Treating it as a process tweak rather than a culture change leads to abandoning it when the first quarter shows no measurable gain.
Is it for you?
Best for
PMs on complex platform or infrastructure teams where technical feasibility and user need are tightly coupled
Not ideal for
Agency or contract engineering setups where the engineers have no continuity with the users
From the transcript
“I've made it a point to bring in my tech lead and Engineers along for this product Discovery Ride”
“user testing sessions and our design jams and our editorial conversation planning sessions and it's helped him and the rest of our Tech and engineering…”
“it's so important to think of your engineers as partners and not just resources and when they are embedded you know into the process right…”
From the episode
An inside look at how CNN builds product
Upasna Gautam