At Avanti, we speak to engineers and hiring managers every day. Here's a trend we think more people should know about.

Going into 2026 it surprises us how many people still aren't familiar with the term Product Engineer. We're writing this to explain why we think it matters.

What is a Product Engineer?

A product engineer combines software development with product thinking. They don't just write code from specifications - they shape what gets built by understanding customer problems, making technical trade-offs, and taking ownership of outcomes.

Forward Deployed Engineers (made famous by Palantir) and Founder Engineers fall into this category too. The common thread is agency and judgment. They don't need detailed specs or extensive oversight. They can talk to users, identify what actually needs building, make technical trade-offs, and ship solutions that work.

Why has it come about?

A cynical view is that companies want to hire fewer people for more output - and that certainly is a factor. But there are several other forces at work.

AI is a big part of it. There's a growing body of people in tech saying that writing code has been commoditised and it's the thinking about what to code that matters. It's not uncommon now to see developers managing multiple AI agents like junior developers and checking their work. To do that well you need to understand the customer problem and the domain. That's the Product Engineer.

Software development also goes through cycles - generalists, then specialists, then back to generalists. Generalist developers were the norm back in 2012. Then Node and cloud became massive and everyone fragmented into frontend, backend, and DevOps specialists. This feels like we're swinging back to generalists again.

It's also the latest trend from Silicon Valley creeping into the UK. Engineers who genuinely care about the user can only be a good thing - I've lost count of the number of times software I use has been "upgraded" and become worse.

Why does this matter if you're looking for a job?

Interviewing is a skill. More often than not that skill doesn't have much bearing on your actual ability as a developer. That's frustrating, but for most people you've got to learn how to play the game.

Like all games there is a meta, and the new meta is demonstrating product engineering skills: understanding customer problems, making technical trade-offs, and taking ownership of outcomes.

So what does that actually look like?

Understanding customer problems: Don't just say "I'm proficient in React, Node, and PostgreSQL." Show them the side project where you shipped a tool that 500 people actually use, complete with the three pivots you made based on user feedback.

Making technical trade-offs: Instead of "I implemented the authentication system according to spec," talk about how you noticed users were abandoning signup, dug into the analytics, realised the 2FA flow was confusing, and rebuilt it - cutting abandonment by 40%.

Taking ownership of outcomes: Talk about finding something that annoyed you and fixing it without anyone asking. The deployment process was taking 2 hours so you automated it. Customer support kept getting the same questions so you built a self-service dashboard.

Not every company calls them Product Engineers. Look for job specs that emphasise ownership ("end-to-end responsibility"), customer proximity ("work directly with users"), and autonomy ("make decisions, don't ask permission"). Random mentions of UX in otherwise full stack roles is also a good indicator.

If you're reading this thinking "I do all this but I don't call myself a Product Engineer"

And you're looking for a job - maybe you should start.

According to LinkedIn there are 160K Software Engineers in the UK and only 1.4K Product Engineers. Similar skills, different label, completely different level of competition.

In London these roles typically start at £100K and it's not uncommon to see salaries north of £150K. More demand, less competition, higher pay. Why spend your time competing with 100 other software engineers for one job when you can pivot to this space?

Why does this matter from a hiring perspective?

There aren't many Product Engineers and lots of companies want them - salaries are higher and competition is fierce. If you don't move quickly and sell your role to candidates, you'll get rejected offers.

The smarter play is to find Software Engineers who are already Product Engineers - they just don't call themselves that yet. There are a lot of people like this.

What to look for:

Stop spending 20 minutes reading CVs. They have never been a reliable indicator of job performance and with AI every candidate can produce a perfect CV for every application. A 5 minute scan of a CV followed by a 15 minute call is a much better use of everyone's time.

The interview itself is straightforward. Product Engineers reveal themselves quickly - they're strong communicators, and when you ask them technical questions they explain it in a way that makes you feel like you understand without being patronising. The best ones sound like they genuinely enjoy the work.

Here's one question we use when screening for product thinking

"Can you tell me about a time when you had to balance technical implementation with user experience requirements? How did you approach the trade-offs?"

There are thousands of correct answers and there's nuance here, but people who answer this well tend to be product-focused. Sometimes it needs coaxing out of them. Sometimes there's an energy where someone is frustrated about not being able to work this way and they don't even know that's what they want. Once you've done hundreds of these interviews, these people jump out at you.

If you want help identifying the right questions to screen for product thinking - or finding the right people - that's exactly what we help with at Avantis. Get in touch.

Final thought

If you're an engineer who cares about users, makes decisions without waiting for permission, and wants ownership over outcomes - you're probably a Product Engineer whether you call yourself that or not.

If you're hiring and need people who can think as well as code - you're looking for Product Engineers even if your job spec doesn't say it.

Hopefully this helps you find the right match.