---
title: "Further reading for product engineers"
source: PostHog Documentation
source_url: https://github.com/PostHog/posthog.com
licence: MIT
domain: data-and-analysis
subdomain: posthog-docs
date_added: 2026-04-25
---

## On product-market fit

Product-market fit is a core concept any product engineer needs to understand. Contrary to received wisdom, it isn't something you find once and forget about. It shifts as your product and market evolves. 

We recommend starting by reading [The only thing matters](https://pmarchive.com/guide_to_startups_part4.html) by Marc Andreessen, who coined the term. After that, try:

* [What we've learned about product-market fit](https://posthog.com/newsletter/what-weve-learned-about-product-market-fit) by Andy Vandervell, a high-level summary of learnings from our newsletter. It also has links to several more useful resources on the topic.

* [The Product-Market Fit Game](https://posthog.com/founders/product-market-fit-game) by our co-CEO, James Hawkins. This is a kind of gamified take on how to find product-market fit. It also covers how to validate ideas, and talking to users.

* [How to measure product-market fit](https://posthog.com/founders/measure-product-market-fit) by Andy Vandervell, where we explain how to go beyond vibes and actively measure product-market fit via a range of leading and lagging indicators.

* [Product Channel Fit Will Make or Break Your Growth](https://brianbalfour.com/essays/product-channel-fit-for-growth) by Brian Balfour, founder of Reforge and a former VP of Growth at Hubspot, which argues that finding the right channel for distribution is equally critical, and can impact how you think about product decisions.

* [How Superhuman Built an Engine to Find Product Market Fit](https://review.firstround.com/how-superhuman-built-an-engine-to-find-product-market-fit/) by Rahul Vohra. A must-read on how to deploy feedback loops to find (and strengthen) product-market fit.

## On deciding what to build

* [How we decide what to build](https://posthog.com/newsletter/how-we-decide-what-to-build) by Ian Vanagas, a look at how we decide and prioritize what to build at PostHog.

* [Prioritising Features: Who’ll Use It & How Often?](https://www.intercom.com/blog/prioritising-features-wholl-use-it-how-often/) by Des Traynor, a quick and actionable primer from the co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Intercom.

* [Defining our ICP is the most important thing we ever did](https://posthog.com/newsletter/ideal-customer-profile-framework) by Andy Vandervell, because you can't decide what to build without first figuring out who you're building for.

* [How to create a great user persona (with examples)](https://posthog.com/product-engineers/how-to-create-user-personas) by Lior Neu-ner. Personas and your ideal customer profile are easily confused. You need to understand both to make good decisions about what to build.

* [Your product ideas probably suck (that's ok)](https://posthog.com/newsletter/validating-product-ideas) by Ian Vanagas, a simple three-step guide to validating new product ideas.

* [An engineer's guide to talking to users](https://posthog.com/newsletter/talk-to-users) by Ian Vanagas, an introduction to the how, why and when of talking to users, including how to find users to talk to, and what questions you should ask them.

## On building

* [Good taste makes great products](https://posthog.com/newsletter/good-taste-great-products) by Danilo Campos is an essential primer on how to think about design as a product engineer, the issues and concepts you should think about, and how to avoid design jank.

* [What we’ve learned about building AI-powered features](https://posthog.com/newsletter/building-ai-features) features by Ian Vanagas is everything we've learned (so far) from building PostHog AI, our AI-powered product manager and data analyst.

* [Avoid these AI coding mistakes](https://posthog.com/newsletter/ai-coding-mistakes) by Ian Vanagas collates all the things our engineers have learned about using Claude Code et al as part of their workflow.

* [This is why you're not shipping](https://posthog.com/newsletter/this-is-why-youre-not-shipping) by Andy Vandervell covers all the things that slow companies and product teams down, and what we do instead. Yo

* [How we choose technologies](https://posthog.com/newsletter/choosing-technologies) by Ian Vanagas explains our strategies for choosing what tech to build with that allows us to move quickly.

## On hiring and interviewing

* [Finding a job as a product engineer](https://posthog.com/newsletter/finding-a-job-product-engineer) by Andy Vandervell collates much of our advice for aspiring product engineers, including how to find product engineer roles, decoding job ads, and increasing your odds of a successful application.

* [Job interview questions engineers should ask (but don't)](https://posthog.com/newsletter/job-interview-questions-engineers) by James Hawkins is about all the questions we wish people asked us during interviews and how they will help you stand out.

* [Hiring (and managing) cracked engineers](https://posthog.com/founders/cracked-manifesto) by Charles Cook. What makes an engineer cracked? How should you manage them? This is how we think about these questions.
