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FAQ for POSE

General

How does POSE improve speed of delivery?

​POSE accelerates delivery by making design and discovery far more efficient and eliminating misalignment issues that slow down execution. Engineering expertise is always on tap, ensuring feasibility is validated early and preventing costly rework. POSE also recommends using Realistic Interactive Mockups (RIMs) instead of software MVPs whenever possible, allowing for faster iteration and feedback cycles without premature development overhead. Additionally, engineers stay closely aligned with the product vision, taking a straighter path from start to finish rather than wasting time on unnecessary course corrections. The Product Trio is able to operate at maximum efficiency, as the Flex Engineer bridges gaps between product and engineering, ensuring fast decision-making and seamless execution.

Does POSE increase costs compared to traditional models?

​Traditional models rely on rigid processes, heavy documentation, and strict role separation, often offshoring or outsourcing development to reduce labor costs. POSE, in contrast, is about building great products and enabling Product Managers to handle larger development efforts more effectively. By embedding high-agency, product-aware engineers, POSE reduces misalignment and minimizes the need for excessive documentation and oversight. While POSE may involve higher personnel costs, these are often offset by increased efficiency, faster delivery, and stronger solution design. Additionally, POSE enhances product quality and usability, increasing the chances of creating products that customers love by ensuring that both technical excellence and user experience reach the highest standards. Rather than focusing purely on cost reduction, POSE prioritizes ROI and long-term value, allowing Product Managers to scale their impact while delivering exceptional products.

Will POSE work with outsourced development or contract workers?

POSE is not well suited for outsourced development teams that operate as engineering mercenaries rather than engineering missionaries. A core goal of POSE is to cultivate engineers who deeply understand the product, take ownership, and contribute to product strategy—something that most outsourced contract workers have no incentive to do. While contract workers can be integrated if they are long-term, fully embedded contributors, traditional outsourcing models—where developers remain detached from the product vision—are fundamentally misaligned with POSE’s principles.

​Is there a need for a Scrum Master or Project Manager in POSE?

POSE eliminates the need for a traditional Scrum Master or Project Manager by integrating coordination directly into the team. Flex Engineers act as lightweight project managers as part of their role, facilitating real-time collaboration and resolving technical blockers. A key enabler of this is the Daily Reports mechanism, which provides broad and deep visibility into the progress of every individual engineer. Flex Engineers read these reports daily, keeping them fully up to speed, which is why the Product Manager can typically call them and get an accurate progress update within seconds or minutes—eliminating the need for frequent status meetings and unnecessary process overhead.

Does POSE eliminate the need for an Agilist on the team?

Yes, POSE assumes that teams operate with agility and self-regulate, eliminating the need for a dedicated Agilist (e.g., Scrum Master, Agile Coach, SAFe Practitioner). With Product Engineers taking ownership of execution and Flex Engineers ensuring smooth coordination and removing bottlenecks, the team naturally aligns around continuous delivery, rapid iteration, and cross-functional collaboration. Instead of relying on an external facilitator, POSE embeds agility within the team structure, making process enforcement unnecessary while maintaining high efficiency and adaptability.

Product Management in POSE

With POSE, since there are no sprint reviews, how does the Product Manager gate what goes into production?

In POSE, the Product Manager has full control over what goes into production. While there are no formal sprint reviews as in Scrum, once a feature is completed, it is demoed to the Product Manager to confirm that it meets the definition of done and aligns with product expectations. This continuous review process ensures that only validated, high-quality features are released. Because Product Engineers work closely with the Product Manager throughout development, this approach streamlines decision-making and reduces unnecessary meetings.

Are PRDs needed in POSE? If so, who writes them?

PRDs are still useful in POSE, but their creation is a collaborative effort between Product Managers and Flex Engineers. The Product Manager must write the sections defining the product vision, business goals, customer needs, and success metrics, as these require strategic and market insight that cannot be delegated. However, the Flex Engineer can take the lead on refining technical details, feasibility considerations, and implementation plans to ensure alignment with engineering constraints. With GenAI tools, the Product Manager can quickly generate an initial draft, which the Flex Engineer then refines for technical completeness and execution readiness. The Flex Engineer’s deep understanding of what is being built, why it’s being built, and how it will be executed also enables them to propagate critical product information to the rest of the engineers and QA. By embedding product knowledge into the engineering team, POSE reduces misunderstandings, accelerates development, and keeps execution tightly aligned.

What is the new scope for Product Managers under POSE methodology?

Under POSE, Product Managers shift their focus away from task-level execution and backlog grooming toward higher-level strategy, market analysis, and deep collaboration with designers and engineers. With Product Engineers handling technical alignment and execution, and Flex Engineers absorbing many operational tasks, Product Managers have more time to refine product vision, conduct customer research, and drive strategic initiatives. This shift enables them to operate at a more impactful level while also allowing them to manage additional teams to expand the scope of a product or even lead additional products, significantly increasing their strategic influence.

​Will all Product Managers need to build the engineer’s skill set?

In small companies with a single team, Product Managers benefit greatly from developing a stronger technical acumen. With fewer layers between product and engineering, understanding system constraints and emerging technologies enables faster decision-making, clearer communication, and stronger collaboration with engineers. While they don’t need to become engineers, a technical foundation helps them navigate trade-offs more effectively and drive innovation without relying on intermediaries. POSE streamlines execution, allowing Product Managers to focus on strategy, but in smaller teams, technical fluency is a key advantage for maximizing impact.

Does POSE keep most engineers at arm’s length, limiting collaboration and innovation?

​POSE ensures that Product Manager needs are met first while also maximizing engineering flow. The Flex Engineer serves as the primary point of contact, providing quick, informed answers to 90% of the Product Manager’s questions based on their deep knowledge of Daily Reports, product codebases, software architecture, and architectural technical debt. This structure ensures that engineers remain available for high-value collaboration while minimizing unnecessary disruptions to their deep work. The Flex Engineer is not a gatekeeper—Product Managers can speak directly with any Product Engineer when needed—but the system optimizes both supporting the PM and maintaining engineering efficiency.

How does POSE provide a lasting competitive advantage, even against fast followers?

While first-mover advantage in product management and design can be short-lived against fast-following competitors, POSE elevates the engineering side of the equation, making a company far more formidable. A business running POSE is like a top-tier sports team excelling in both offense and defense—combining superior product strategy with high-agency, product-aware engineering teams that execute faster and with higher quality. This ensures that even when competitors copy features, they struggle to match the speed, technical excellence, and seamless execution of a POSE-driven team.

Does POSE eliminate the need for Jira and documentation?

POSE does not eliminate Jira or documentation but significantly reduces reliance on them by shifting toward direct collaboration and product knowledge sharing. Product Engineers develop a deep understanding of the product vision, reducing the need for detailed user stories and excessive task tracking. Instead, lightweight documentation is maintained in shared tools (e.g., Confluence, internal Wikis, or Notion). This approach minimizes overhead while ensuring critical knowledge is accessible without burdening the Product Manager or slowing down development.

Product Engineers

How do you convince engineers that becoming Product Engineers and taking ownership is in their best interest?

The key to convincing engineers to embrace the Product Engineer mindset is showing them how high agency and ownership make them more valuable, increase job stability, and open up greater career opportunities. Engineers who deeply understand the product and its business impact are no longer just executors of tasks—they become strategic contributors who influence outcomes. This leads to more autonomy, less micromanagement, and a stronger voice in decision-making. POSE naturally reinforces this shift by embedding engineers in product discussions, ensuring they see firsthand how their work impacts users and business goals. When engineers connect their technical skills to real-world impact, their motivation, job satisfaction, and career trajectory improve significantly.

Should Product Engineers understand business concepts and ROI?

Yes, Product Engineers should grasp business concepts, ROI, and operational costs, especially for cloud-based solutions. Many engineers make costly mistakes by selecting expensive database solutions (e.g., Snowflake, Amazon Aurora) or adopting expensive architectures (e.g., microservices) without considering whether they fit within operational budgets. Understanding how software choices impact long-term costs ensures Product Engineers make informed decisions that balance technical feasibility with financial sustainability.

How long does it take to transition a Software Engineer into a Product Engineer?

The transition typically takes several quarters to a few years, depending on experience and exposure to product thinking. Engineers develop through peer mentorship, hands-on collaboration with the Product Trio, and targeted training, rather than just formal instruction. This investment pays off long term, giving companies a huge competitive advantage over those operating with traditional software engineering teams. Teams of Product Engineers deliver solutions faster and at superior quality, driving better product-market fit, sustained business impact, and long-term innovation velocity.

How does POSE cultivate “engineering missionaries” as opposed to “engineering mercenaries”?

POSE fosters a high sense of ownership by giving engineers a clear view of the people they are helping with their work. Most engineers are natural problem solvers who find deep satisfaction in using their skills to make a real impact. Those in the Flex Engineer role gain significant exposure to customers as part of their Product Trio responsibilities, ensuring they deeply understand user needs. They share this knowledge with the rest of the Product Engineers, keeping the entire team freshly aware of the “what” and “why” behind their work. This direct connection to customer impact fuels passion and energy, transforming engineers into “missionaries” who drive meaningful outcomes rather than “mercenaries” executing tasks without context.

What are the career benefits for software engineers who take on the responsibilities of a Product Engineer?

Becoming a Product Engineer makes software engineers significantly more valuable to their company by expanding their skill set beyond coding to include product strategy, business alignment, and cross-functional collaboration. This broader expertise leads to greater job stability, increased leadership opportunities, and higher earning potential. Product Engineers are trusted to make impactful decisions, reducing reliance on top-down management and positioning themselves as indispensable contributors to both technical execution and product success. This career evolution future-proofs their role, making them more resilient to market shifts and organizational changes.

How do Product Engineers build product-oriented skills quickly to adapt to this new environment?

Product Engineers build product-oriented skills by engaging in product discussions, collaborating with Product Managers and Designers, and focusing on user needs and business objectives. They refine decision-making by balancing technical feasibility with product impact and learning from real-world trade-offs. A key best practice is documenting acquired product knowledge in a shared tool (e.g., Confluence, an internal Wiki, or Notion), ensuring insights accumulate to a critical mass without burdening the Product Manager. Leveraging AI with Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) further enhances this process by dynamically serving up relevant information, allowing engineers to quickly access and apply knowledge in real-time, fostering a scalable, self-sustaining culture of product awareness.

Flex Engineer Role

​What if there isn’t a qualified Flex Engineer on the team? Who upskills existing staff, and how does the team operate in the meantime?

If a strong Flex Engineer isn’t already on the team, the best approach is to identify and upskill a capable engineer with strong software craftsmanship skills, technical depth, and communication abilities. This upskilling happens through mentorship, shadowing, and gradually taking on responsibilities. In the meantime, the Product Manager can still operate successfully by leveraging AI-driven Daily Reports, which present engineering progress at a manager-friendly level of technical understanding. This enables them to stay informed without excessive interruptions to the team. The Flex Engineer becomes much more necessary when a Product Manager is managing multiple teams, ensuring alignment, reducing overhead, and providing a single point of contact for deeper technical insights. Edensoft Labs provides consulting and training materials to help organizations build a talent pipeline for both Product Engineers and Flex Engineers, offering guidance for engineering leaders, engineering managers, and even HR teams on recruiting, upskilling, and performance management.

Is the Flex Engineer an intermediary for the Product Manager to communicate directly with the rest of the Product Engineers?

No, the Flex Engineer is not a gatekeeper between the Product Manager and Product Engineers. POSE encourages direct collaboration between them. However, the Flex Engineer plays a crucial role in enhancing bidirectional information flow, particularly addressing the common gap where engineering work-in-progress is a black box to Product Managers. By monitoring Daily Reports, resolving blockers in real time, and maintaining deep awareness of technical progress, the Flex Engineer ensures the Product Manager has clear, timely visibility into what’s happening in engineering. This allows for faster decision-making, better alignment, and fewer disruptions to focused development work.

Why would a Flex Engineer be better than a Tech Lead?

A Flex Engineer ensures that Product Trio activities are never bottlenecked, particularly in multi-team developments where the Product Manager increasingly becomes a bottleneck as the product team scales. While a Tech Lead focuses on long-term technical strategy, architectural decisions, and mentoring engineers, they also often take on difficult engineering tasks that require deep focus, which conflicts with the Flex Engineer’s primary responsibility of being readily available for Product Trio activities. A Flex Engineer leverages broad, deep, and timely awareness through Daily Reports to rapidly unblock teams, provide instant progress updates, and ensure continuous product-technical alignment without unnecessary delays. This allows the Product Manager to stay focused on strategic work while maintaining agility across teams. While both roles involve leadership, the Flex Engineer’s emphasis on real-time execution and availability makes them more effective in ensuring smooth collaboration. That said, Tech Leads often transition well into the Flex Engineer role, provided they shift their focus from deep technical work to prioritizing cross-team facilitation.

Does the Flex Engineer translate technical details for the Product Manager?

​Yes, the Flex Engineer ensures the Product Manager understands key technical updates, fixes, and progress by translating “tech speak” into clear insights. This allows the Product Manager to confidently communicate with stakeholders while ensuring the engineering team maintains deep work focus without unnecessary interruptions.

What is the difference between the Flex Engineer role and a Tech Lead role?

​The Flex Engineer in POSE is focused on real-time collaboration, cross-team alignment, and unblocking development, while a Tech Lead is primarily responsible for deep technical decision-making, architectural guidance, and mentoring engineers. Unlike a Tech Lead, who concentrates on long-term technical strategy, the Flex Engineer operates across teams to ensure smooth execution, resolve blockers, and keep the Product Manager informed. Flex Engineers also monitor Daily Reports, giving them continuous awareness of progress, dependencies, and emerging issues. Additionally, they have a strong understanding of architectural technical debt, helping teams make trade-offs without accumulating unnecessary complexity. While these roles differ, Tech Leads are often excellent candidates to be Flex Engineers due to their technical expertise and leadership skills, making the transition natural for those who enjoy real-time problem-solving and coordination.

Why would a Flex Engineer be better than a Software Delivery Manager?

A Flex Engineer is deeply embedded in the engineering team, ensuring real-time technical alignment, unblocking dependencies, and directly improving execution, whereas a Software Delivery Manager operates at a higher level, focusing on project coordination, timelines, and stakeholder communication. Unlike a Software Delivery Manager, who typically relies on process oversight and reporting, a Flex Engineer works hands-on with engineers to resolve challenges immediately, reducing bottlenecks and keeping development moving efficiently. Additionally, the Flex Engineer’s technical expertise allows them to provide accurate, context-aware updates to the Product Manager, eliminating the need for translation layers. This real-time adaptability and deep product knowledge make Flex Engineers more effective in accelerating delivery while maintaining alignment across teams.

Will Flex Engineers handle defects and bugs that make their way back into the backlog? If not, who handles this?

No, Flex Engineers do not own defect resolution—their primary role is to ensure smooth execution, remove bottlenecks, and facilitate collaboration within the Product Trio. Defects and bugs are typically handled by Product Engineers, who take ownership of their code and maintain product quality. However, the Flex Engineer stays informed of defect trends, helping to identify systemic issues, ensure prioritization aligns with business needs, and facilitate discussions when cross-team coordination is required.

How does POSE guarantee that Flex Engineers are not the ones now dealing with burnout (rather than the PM)?

While the Flex Engineer takes on operational tasks that traditionally fall to Product Managers—particularly in managing multiple teams—the total workload is much smaller than a full Product Manager role. These tasks are also significantly easier for the Flex Engineer to handle due to their deep engineering expertise, allowing them to resolve technical alignment issues quickly and efficiently without the friction a less technical Product Manager might face. By reducing process overhead and enabling seamless execution, the Flex Engineer enhances team agility without absorbing unsustainable workloads.

​How does the role of a Flex Engineer contrast with that of an Agile Product Owner?

The Flex Engineer in POSE is a senior technical team member who facilitates real-time collaboration, removes blockers, and ensures seamless technical execution across teams, while the Agile Product Owner in Scrum focuses on backlog management, prioritization, and aligning development with business goals. Unlike the Product Owner, who guides development through structured planning and stakeholder communication, the Flex Engineer operates within engineering to accelerate execution, reduce reliance on formal processes, and enable faster technical decision-making, complementing product strategy with real-time problem-solving.

How does the role of a Flex Engineer contrast with that of a Software Delivery Manager?

The Flex Engineer in POSE is a hands-on technical expert who facilitates real-time collaboration, resolves blockers, and ensures cross-team alignment, while the Software Delivery Manager focuses on project coordination, timelines, and stakeholder communication. The Flex Engineer requires deep technical expertise, problem-solving skills, and adaptability to support engineering efforts, whereas the Software Delivery Manager relies on project management, risk mitigation, and organizational skills to ensure smooth delivery.

How does the role of a Flex Engineer contrast with that of a Technical Product Manager?

The Flex Engineer in POSE is an embedded technical expert focused on real-time collaboration, resolving engineering blockers, and ensuring seamless technical execution across teams, while a Technical Product Manager (TPM) defines product requirements, prioritizes features, and aligns development with business goals. Unlike the TPM, who operates at the intersection of product strategy and engineering planning, the Flex Engineer works within the development team to optimize technical workflows, reduce dependencies on meetings, and accelerate execution through direct problem-solving.

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