No PMs. Designers and engineers run product. You talk to customers, frame the problem, write the spec, decide what ships
Small temporary teams. You plus one or two engineers per project. Whoever is closest to the problem leads
Design leads the logic, engineering tests feasibility. You bring the V1. Engineers push back on what's expensive or risky, start ahead with system design. They help spot edge cases. You adjust it fast. We get from v1 to v4 in matter of hours or few days
Prototype-grade, not wireframes. Real components, real states, real copy. Sometimes an LLM-built prototype before Figma. The component library stays current because the speed of design depends on it
Handoff is the beginning, not the end. You're in the engineering channel. You review the PR. You verify on production. Staging QA is the first gate, not the last
In-sync culture with thoughtful coms mindset. Loom for reviews, Notion for specs, quick loops in Gather where written coms doesn’t cut it, all happening in the same time zone. Team mates are reviewing things quick. Engineers and designers spend under two hours weekly meetings
AI is part of the craft. We use Claude to pressure-test ideas, draft specs, surface edge cases, write test cases. Not to skip thinking
Month 1. Ship your first design to production. Get into the codebase, the customer language, the way we write specs. Sit on customer calls
Month 2. Own a full feature end-to-end. Customer conversations, problem framing, Figma, spec, engineer pairing, PR review, production verification
Month 3 and beyond. Push the design system forward. Start building the tools and skills that make engineers faster at design. Improve the product design process. The bar is yours to defend