AI can scaffold an app in seconds, but can it refactor that thousand-line React file when the first bug hits production?

In this episode, I sit down with Brian Jenney software engineer and program owner of the coding bootcamp Parsity, to draw a hard line between “code that runs” and “code that lasts.” From mentoring career-switchers to stress-testing AI in real-world pipelines, Brian shares why craftsmanship and product judgment still beat copy-paste prompts.

🔗 Essential Links (Start Here!):

Full Episodes: https://product-driven.captivate.fm/episodes

Connect with Matt Watson on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattwatsonkc/

Subscribe to the Newsletter: https://newsletter.productdriven.com/

Powered by Full Scale: https://fullscale.io/

GET THE PRODUCT DRIVEN BOOK: https://productdriven.com/book

Connect with Brian on LinkedIn :https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianjenney/

Check out Parsity here: https://www.parsity.io/

Key Discussion Points:

“You have to be smarter than the AI.” Why blindly shipping generated code is the fastest way to paint yourself into a technical-debt corner

The hidden risk of non-deterministic models—like failing a simple “greater-than” check in production tests

A training rule of thumb: no AI for your first months of study, then use it only to reinforce fundamentals—not replace them

The “house-of-cards” analogy for code quality and why maintainability still matters when AI writes the first draft

How Parsity’s tight-knit model turns plumbers, teachers, and even doctors into disciplined, product-minded engineers

If you’re running a startup, chances are you’re the bottleneck.

Brittany Rastsmith joins Product Driven to talk through why founders constantly end up in this trap and how to escape it. She works with early-stage companies through her consulting firm, Bloom Remote, and she's seen it all. We get into how to create clarity, visibility, and accountability across your team so you’re not stuck answering every question, solving every problem, or staying up all night wondering if anything is getting done.

If you want your team to take ownership and drive outcomes—not just check boxes—this episode is for you.

[01:36] - Why being the bottleneck it's a stage

[03:06] - Choose your hard: micromanage or build trust

[08:06] - How to measure what matters

[11:06] - Delegating doesn't work if you dump chaos

[15:06] - Explain your thinking if you want your team to carry it out

[16:36] - The power of decision logs and written rationale

[20:21] - Why psychological safety is key to team ownership

[22:06] - Rubber-stamping is the death of progress

[24:36] - Why most managers are untrained (and why that matters)

[28:36] - Productivity vs. busyness: where your team might be stuck

[29:51] - Inputs vs. outcomes: how to tell what's actually broken

[31:41] - Where to find Brittany and learn more about Bloom Remote

Links & Resources:

Brittany Rastsmith on LinkedIn:

Bloom Remote

Get the Book: https://mybook.to/productdriven

Newsletter: productdriven.com

Connect with Matt: https://linkedin.com/in/mattwatson

Get the Offshore Hiring Guide: https://hirefullscale.com/offshore-hiring-guide

In this revealing conversation, we unpack one of tech's most polarizing concepts while exploring the brutal realities of building technical partnerships in today's startup ecosystem. Host Matt Watson and Noah Lindner (ex-Airbnb engineer turned consultant) deliver unfiltered insights that challenge conventional wisdom about technical hiring and startup team dynamics.

🔗 Essential Links (Start Here!):

Get the Book: https://mybook.to/productdriven

Newsletter: productdriven.com

Connect with Matt: https://linkedin.com/in/mattwatson

Full Scale Ventures: https://fullscaleventures.com

Get the Offshore Hiring Guide: https://hirefullscale.com/offshore-hiring-guide

YC Co-Founder Matching: https://ycombinator.com/cofounder-matching

The conversation opens with a fascinating transformation—how the once-toxic "10X developer" stereotype has evolved into a legitimate business advantage. Noah's perspective shift reveals something profound: the best engineers aren't just writing code faster; they're architecting workflows that eliminate friction entirely.

Real-World 10X Impact:

• Before: 30-minute CI builds crushing team velocity
• After: 2-second feedback loops enabling continuous iteration
• Result: Exponential productivity gains through systematic optimization

Matt delivers a game-changing insight: "To really be a true technical co-founder, they've got to have the vision for what's being built... not just the technical vision, but the product vision."

This distinction separates true startup partners from highly-paid order-takers—a critical differentiation in today's competitive landscape.

• 00:00 - Deconstructing the 10X developer phenomenon
• 08:30 - Technical co-founder vs. founding engineer dynamics
• 16:45 - The four pillars of engineering leadership
• 25:20 - Why big tech creates product-blind engineers
• 32:15 - Navigating the golden handcuffs dilemma

The conversation reveals how technological democratization is reshaping co-founder dynamics. When any PM can create "lovable prototypes" using no-code tools, the bar for technical co-founders rises significantly. Success now requires scalable prototyping—building MVPs that can evolve rather than require complete rebuilds.

Matt's four-quadrant framework provides clarity:

• Strategy: Long-term architectural vision
• Operations: Team efficiency and process optimization
• Product: User experience and market alignment
• Technical: Core engineering excellence

For early-stage startups, product...

From Coding to Catalyst: The Evolution of Technology Leadership 🚀

Journey through the transformation of modern CTOs with industry veteran Kathy Keating, who shares battle-tested insights from scaling teams of 2 to 450+ engineers. This episode unravels the complex tapestry of technology leadership, exploring how yesterday's code-focused roles have evolved into today's strategic business catalysts.

🔗 Essential Links (Start Here!):

Get the Book: https://mybook.to/productdriven

Newsletter: productdriven.com

Connect with Matt: https://linkedin.com/in/mattwatson

Full Scale Ventures: https://fullscaleventures.com

Get the Offshore Hiring Guide: https://hirefullscale.com/offshore-hiring-guide

The Leadership Evolution Story 📖

The Great Divide: Once upon a time, software engineers were the product owners, customer advocates, and technical architects all rolled into one. They flew across continents to understand telecom fraud patterns, immersed themselves in customer operations for weeks, and returned with deep domain expertise. Today's specialized world has created powerful capabilities—but at what cost?

The Four Pillars of Engineering Leadership: Matt introduces a provocative framework suggesting no one masters all four domains: Strategic visioning, Operational excellence, Technical depth, and Product intuition. The conversation challenges us to identify our strengths while building systems that compensate for our natural limitations.

Behind the Framework: CTO Levels Decoded 🔍

Kathy reveals the methodology behind assessing technology leadership maturity—from solo programmer (Level 0) to industry thought leader (Level 10). Each level demands mastery of previous foundations while introducing new complexities like acquisitions, strategic partnerships, and organizational transformation.

The Assessment Reality: A comprehensive 50-question evaluation generating 60-page strategic roadmaps. Hundreds of leaders have used this framework to identify gaps and accelerate growth—proving that systematic development beats trial-and-error learning.

Chapter Timestamps:

00:00 - Opening: Two Authors, One Mission

02:14 - Defining Modern CTO Reality

04:11 - The Four-Type Leadership Framework

07:21 - CTO Levels: Decoding the Hierarchy

09:25 - Career Path Truth: How Do You Actually Become a CTO?

16:58 - Strategic Advice: The Power of Starting Small

17:52 - Then vs. Now: 20 Years of Engineering Evolution

22:03 - The Product-Engineering Divide Crisis

26:12 - AI Revolution: Promise and Peril

32:44 - Resources: CTO Levels and Liquid Book Overview

33:09 - Final Thoughts and Next Steps

Which of the four engineering leadership types resonates most with your current role—Strategic, Operational, Technical, or Product? Share your experience in the comments and let's discuss how to build complementary teams that cover all bases.

Product Driven: Building Software Teams That Ship Value 🚀

In this special book launch episode, we dive deep into the intersection of engineering leadership, product thinking, and the transformative impact of AI on software development. Join Matt Watson and Craig Ferril as they explore the revolutionary "Product Driven Model" and why traditional development approaches are becoming obsolete.

🔗 Essential Resources:

Get the Book: https://a.co/d/100RmwC

Newsletter: productdriven.com

Connect with Matt: https://linkedin.com/in/mattwatson

Full Scale Ventures: https://fullscaleventures.com

Get the Offshore Hiring Guide: https://hirefullscale.com/offshore-hiring-guide

Key Discussion Highlights:

• Vision: Understanding the "why" behind every decision
• Focus: Keeping customer outcomes at the center
• Clarity: Providing just enough context without overwhelming
• Shared Ownership: Distributing responsibility across teams
• Courage: Creating psychological safety for innovation

🤖 AI's Leadership Challenge

• Engineering bottlenecks are shifting from throughput to direction
• Teams going "2x faster in the wrong direction" create bigger problems
• Leadership must evolve from requirement-feeders to vision-communicators
• The rise of "low-code thinking" in traditional development

🎯 From Individual Contributors to Leaders

• The transition from "doing" to "enabling others to do"
• Four types of engineering leadership: Strategic, Operational, Technical, and Product
• Why most leaders aren't good at all four (and shouldn't try to be)

Chapter Timestamps:

00:00 - Book Launch Introduction & "Find Your Craig"

08:16 - Why AI Makes Product Thinking Critical

15:03 - The Death Spiral of Internal Focus

18:07 - Creating Cultures of Courage vs. Fear

23:14 - The Five Components of Product Driven Model

32:40 - Future of Engineering Leadership

37:22 - Closing the Feedback Loop with Introverted Teams

💡 Key Takeaways:

For Engineering Leaders:

• Stop being the bottleneck - build teams that don't need you
• Create environments where "calling the baby ugly" is celebrated
• Focus on making other people more productive

For Product Teams:

• Shift from feature factories to outcome-driven development
• Embrace the "win or learn" mentality
• Connect every technical decision to customer value

For Organizations:

• AI won't solve leadership problems - it will expose them
• Culture and strategy must work in tandem
• The future belongs to teams that think like product owners

The conversation reveals a fundamental shift happening in software development. As AI democratizes code creation, the competitive advantage moves from "how fast can we build" to "what should we build and why." Teams that master this transition will thrive; those that don't will find...

Product Driven: The Book Launch - A Software Leader's Journey to Creating High-Performance Teams 📚

After months of intensive writing and years of industry experience, Matt Watson unveils his groundbreaking book "Product Driven" - a comprehensive guide for engineering leaders seeking to build teams with a genuine product mindset. This isn't just another business book; it's a practical roadmap for transforming how software teams think, work, and deliver value.

In this revealing first look, Matt shares the personal journey that led to creating this essential resource for the tech industry. Drawing from his extensive career building and scaling software products, he addresses a critical gap in leadership literature - how to actually build and manage teams that think like product owners, not just code executors.

Get the Book: https://a.co/d/100RmwC

Newsletter: productdriven.com

Connect with Matt: https://linkedin.com/in/mattwatson

Full Scale Ventures: https://fullscaleventures.com

Get the Offshore Hiring Guide: https://hirefullscale.com/offshore-hiring-guide

Key Discussion Points:

• The evolution from developer conference speech to comprehensive leadership guide
• Why product mindset separates high-performing developers from the rest
• The cultural transformation required for sustainable team success
• Practical frameworks for engineering leaders to implement immediately
• The 500-hour writing journey and lessons learned

Chapter Timestamps:

00:00 - The Big Reveal: First Look at Product Driven

00:22 - The Origin Story: From Conference Speech to Book

01:30 - The Culture Revolution: Why Leadership Matters

02:38 - The Writing Process: 500 Hours of Insights

Ready to Transform Your Team? Share your biggest leadership challenge in the comments - what's preventing your developers from thinking like product owners? Let's discuss practical solutions that actually work in real engineering environments.

Breaking Through Requirements Hell: How AI is Revolutionizing Software Development 🚀

In this compelling exploration of technological transformation, host Matt Watson connects with Chris Rickard, founder of UserDoc, broadcasting from Vietnam. Their conversation unveils a profound shift happening across the software industry—one where artificial intelligence is fundamentally reshaping the relationship between business stakeholders and development teams.

What emerges is a fascinating paradox: as AI accelerates coding capabilities, the critical constraint shifts from "how do we build it?" to "what exactly should we build?" Chris's journey from software engineer to product innovator illustrates this transformation, revealing how traditional bottlenecks are being reimagined through AI-powered requirements management.

🔗 Essential Links (Start Here!):

Full Episodes: https://product-driven.captivate.fm/episodes

Connect with Matt Watson on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattwatsonkc/

Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://fullscaleteam.com/newsletter

Get our FREE Ebook: https://fullscaleteam.com/productfirstteams

Powered by Full Scale: https://fullscale.io/

Download the FREE Offshore Hiring Guide: https://hirefullscale.com/offshore-hiring-guide

UserDoc: https://userdoc.com

Chris Rickard on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrickard/

Key Discussion Points:

AI-Powered Requirements Creation: How UserDoc accelerates requirements by 50-70% while maintaining human oversight

Reverse Engineering Legacy Systems: Converting complex source code (including COBOL) into understandable business features

The Shifting Development Bottleneck: Why clarity becomes paramount when AI makes development faster

Integration with Modern Workflows: Connecting requirements directly to AI coding tools like Cursor and GitHub Copilot

Chapter Timestamps:

00:00 - The Universal Developer Dilemma

02:28 - Genesis of UserDoc

07:57 - Beyond Product Managers: Who Really Needs This

14:40 - Technical Challenges of Code Analysis

22:44 - The Great Bottleneck Shift

27:04 - Pricing and Market Accessibility

Ready to break free from requirements chaos and accelerate your development workflow? The conversation with Chris Rickard reveals a pivotal moment in software development—where AI amplifies human potential rather than replacing it. 

Share your own requirements management challenges in the comments below. How has AI changed your development process? What bottlenecks are you experiencing as coding becomes more automated?

Learning Through Play: How Boddle Built Educational Games That Kids Actually Want

In this insightful conversation, Matt Watson talks with Clarence Tan, founder and CEO of Boddle Learning, about their journey building educational games that have reached over 10 million users. Clarence shares how they tackled the classic problem of educational games - how to make them as engaging as regular games while maintaining educational value. By creating fun games first and then "sneaking in" learning content, Boddle has found success in the competitive educational technology space.

The most valuable lesson? Get out of the office and actually watch users interact with your product. Rather than spending money on complex analytics, the Boddle team discovered their biggest product issues simply by visiting classrooms and observing how kids used their app. Clarence also shares how they eventually cracked the monetization code by understanding that parents were buying subscriptions not because they understood the educational benefits, but because their kids wanted the in-game items.

🔗 Essential Links (Start Here!):

Full Episodes: https://product-driven.captivate.fm/episodes

Connect with Matt Watson on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattwatsonkc/

Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://newsletter.productdriven.com/

Powered by Full Scale: https://fullscale.io/

GET THE PRODUCT DRIVEN BOOK: https://productdriven.com/book

Check out Boddle here: https://www.boddlelearning.com/

Key Discussion Points:

🎮 Building educational games that are genuinely fun first

🧠 How Boddle "sneaks in" learning content after establishing engaging gameplay

💰 The journey from zero users to 10 million through COVID and beyond

📊 Why watching actual users beats fancy analytics tools

🔑 The monetization breakthrough: understanding kids are the real decision makers

🚀 Pivoting from building many games to focusing on the most successful one

📱 How Boddle connects with both teachers and parents

Chapters:

00:00 - Introduction and Welcome

00:46 - Origins of Boddle Learning

02:08 - Making Education Fun Through Games

04:17 - Early Funding and Productization

05:36 - Impact of COVID on Growth

07:42 - Getting on the White House Educational Resources List

08:19 - Server Challenges with Rapid Growth

09:04 - Moving to Tulsa for VC Funding

10:30 - The "Leaky Bucket" Discovery

11:21 - Monetization Challenges

13:57 - Finding the Most Popular Game Mode

14:51 - The Pet Battle Game Success

15:58 - NFT Experiment Mistakes

16:52 - Keeping Education in Fun Games

18:45 - The Power of Classroom Observation

20:47 - First-Time User Experience Issues

22:32 - Learning to Sell to Parents Through Kids

25:40 - Tapping Into the Entertainment Wallet

26:45 - Boddle Bucks and Future Growth

27:38 - Impact and Educational Value

Ready to transform your child's screen time into learning time? Visit https://www.boddlelearning.com/ to try their educational games that kids actually want to play!