Kent closes Chats with Kent season 7 and explains what changes on this feed: Become a Product Engineer is now its own podcast, with season 7 episodes and upcoming releases on that RSS feed. He previews guests still in the pipeline and introduces Better with Kent, a new solo series on durable skills for software engineers.

Season 7 of Chats with Kent is over. The interview series you have been following as Become a Product Engineer has graduated into its own show. Kent may do another Chats with Kent season later, but for now this episode is the season 7 finale on the Chats with Kent feed.

If you have been subscribed here, you do not need to re-listen to old episodes to catch up. The season 7 conversations are already on the new podcast, and the episodes Kent mentions below are scheduled on that feed going forward.

Still coming on Become a Product Engineer (among others):

• Jack Ryan (Intercom) - user empathy, feedback loops, and what not to build
• Swizec Teller - user outcomes, workflow design, and biotech software
• Grady Booch - software architecture, human judgment, and AI's limits (including Kent's "Last Software Engineer" framing)
• Sean Roberts - the technical person in the room and how product engineering differs from product management
• Ruben Casas - demos, feedback loops, and judgment in the AI product era
• Lucas Varga (FamilySearch) - helping engineers grow into product engineers

Kent is also starting Better with Kent: solo episodes on durable skills - judgment, accountability, empathy, and what stays valuable as AI takes on more implementation - on YouTube and in podcast apps.

• Subscribe to Become a Product Engineer in your favorite podcast app so you do not miss upcoming guest episodes.
• Subscribe to Better with Kent on YouTube or your podcast player for the new solo series.
• If you have not moved yet, open the Become a Product Engineer feed once and confirm you see the season 7 episodes you have already heard - then stay subscribed there for new releases.

• Become a Product Engineer podcast
• Better with Kent
• Chats with Kent (call in)

• Website: kentcdodds.com
• 𝕏: @kentcdodds
• GitHub: @kentcdodds
• YouTube: Kent C. Dodds
• Podcast: epicproduct.engineer

Rhys has an unusually current perspective on product engineering because he is working right at the edge of the agent tooling shift. The conversation starts with his recent work on Vercel Domains and then moves into Executor, where the challenge is no longer just implementing integrations, but choosing the abstractions that make a system composable, safe, and pleasant to use over time.

What makes the episode strong is how often it comes back to product judgment instead of novelty. Rhys and Kent talk about finding the right primitives, observing how other products solve hard UX problems, resisting the urge to ship every request immediately, and building systems that help agents without letting them become dangerously "helpful."

• Create a dedicated notes channel or system where you save examples of products doing something well.
• Use those notes as reusable product input: when you need to build a flow later, pull the examples back up instead of starting from scratch.

• Executor
• Rhys Sullivan — site
• Executor — GitHub
• OpenCode

• Company: Executor
• GitHub: @RhysSullivan
• 𝕏: @RhysSullivan

• Website: kentcdodds.com
• 𝕏: @kentcdodds
• GitHub: @kentcdodds
• YouTube: Kent C. Dodds

Watch this episode on YouTube

Alex brings a product and marketing lens that fits this season perfectly: great products do not just solve technical problems, they help the right people recognize that you understand their world. The conversation starts with finding an audience and quickly turns into a practical way to build product sense inside a company: learn how customers describe themselves, observe where they gather, listen for the language they use, and speak from their priorities instead of your own taste.

The second half gets into Sales Safari, Stacking the Bricks' observational research practice. Alex explains why surveys and interviews can miss important signal, what to look for in real conversations, and how notes on jargon, pain, worldview, and recommendations can turn scattered internet conversations into useful product understanding. The through-line is simple and demanding: reduce the distance between you and the people you serve so your software, messaging, and decisions feel anticipated rather than manipulative.

• The next time coworkers or product teammates disagree about direction, step back and observe the conversation.
• Ask: who is this disagreement in service of? Is it serving the customer, the decision maker, the loudest person, or someone else?
• Practice this once a day or once a week, then use the patterns you notice to decide what you should contribute.

• Stacking the Bricks
• 30x500
• The Tiny MBA
• The Mom Test
• Alex Hillman on X

• Company: Stacking the Bricks
• GitHub: @alexknowshtml
• 𝕏: @alexhillman

• Website: kentcdodds.com
• 𝕏: @kentcdodds
• GitHub: @kentcdodds
• YouTube: Kent C. Dodds

Watch this episode on YouTube