Should a Developer Know How to "Make a Product"?

The Problem

Learning to code during my university years, being exposed to various programming languages, we all know how to choose the best language that we will use as our main skill in the future. When I started working, I heard my colleagues discussing which language is better, which language is worth learning, etc. This made me even more eager to conquer those things.

I used to think that I would code my whole life because I didn't know what else I could do besides coding, so I tried to improve my coding skills by constantly searching for relevant resources.

One day, I applied to work for a company that specializes in providing SaaS products, and here I learned many new things, knowledge that I felt was like a new horizon. One of them is the ability to think productively.

What is Product Thinking?

You can search on Google to find the concept, but for me, it is knowing how to create a valuable product for users. What does "valuable" mean? It means a product that solves a problem for many people, and they enjoy using your product. To achieve this, you need to understand the users, constantly update your knowledge because your customers are always innovating.

I am a developer, and I see that many people enjoy reading blogs. I, myself, enjoy writing, so I started with the Blogger platform. After a while, I realized that Blogger was too heavy and complex, making it difficult to customize everything the way I wanted. So I decided to code my own blog to solve these problems. But nothing was easy, I spent a lot of time analyzing what I wanted and what the users wanted, developing the blog, collecting and analyzing data. But in return, I learned a lot from building a blog.

A developer with product thinking will think about features and products in a different way than a pure developer. They care more about users, are curious about their behavior and thoughts. They prioritize making users satisfied with the product. They are cautious when adding a new feature because they know that adding a new feature also increases the complexity of the product. For them, the user's attitude towards the product is more important than the technical aspects of creating the product.

For example, for a feature like sending emails, users only care about being able to send emails and the recipient receiving them quickly, without caring about the complex logic system that you put a lot of effort into creating. If there is a problem with the email system, you can't explain to them what the error is, they only care about when the email is sent normally. Or if a feature is too complicated, with too many steps to complete, how many people have the patience to go through all the steps before they simply exit your application? For me, a good feature is one that doesn't require users to think too much to decide to use it.

Why Should Developers Know How to Make a Product?

There are many reasons why you should be interested in product thinking and product development. Here are some of my views on the benefits of this:

• Approaching the product in a new way.
  As a user, you understand them. At this point, technical skills are no longer as important. It is a different approach from pure coding developers who always try to optimize code lines and technical aspects, sometimes forgetting about the bad user experience. Ultimately, the products you create are for serving users, unless you are the user yourself.

• Caring about the business, user behavior, and data.
  At this point, you need to care about the business model and the situation of your own business to identify the target group that your business is aiming for. This is the foundation for the features and products you are preparing to develop. Different user groups will have different behaviors, and the data collected will tell you how they differ. Furthermore, this will help you understand the business better to make decisions about dedication or finding a new environment when needed.

• Always questioning "why"?
  Why do we need to add this feature? Why do we have to remove that feature? Many "why" questions force you to find answers. To do that, you need to rely on many things, one of which is the data you collected. Or it could be feedback from users when they use new features.

• Expanding domains and business areas.
  You will realize that as a developer, you not only care about code but also many other things that contribute to your success and the success of the product you are developing. This opens up new directions for your career development. Who knows, maybe you will no longer enjoy sitting and coding but instead do something else.

• Technical aspects are no longer paramount, balancing technical skills with user experience.
  Usually, when facing a problem, we tend to think of a solution without evaluating the problem. Will the user experience face any issues when solving that problem in a more technical way? Will it cause difficulties or provide a poor experience just because we want to apply the latest technical advancements? A difficult-to-use product is certainly not an excellent product, so you have to balance technical skills with the user experience.

• Having thoughts about the product as a user.
  As a user of a product, you know how to create features that are most "valuable" to users. To achieve this, you need to spend a lot of time learning and using other products. Forming a habit of analyzing and evaluating when using a new product. This is a valuable database for your future career path.

• Self-development.
  Creating a good product is not something that can be done in a day or two, nor is it just a matter of knowing how to write code. It is a constant learning process and requires you to constantly innovate and renew yourself. Learning new things means realizing that you didn't know much before.

Conclusion

Above are my views on how developers can further develop themselves through product thinking. I am a developer with the hope of creating something that can be helpful in life. But for now, I can only share my experiences, right or wrong, and I hope to receive feedback from everyone.