What does business sense for engineers look like in practice? Arnon Cavaeiro joins me to talk about product engineering, product discovery and choosing which customer problems to solve. We get into revenue, costs and product strategy, and how understanding them helps you decide what to build next.

The conversation moves from discovery to delivery, with practical questions engineers can bring to their next project. Why can a feature go unused even when a customer requested it? What is the smallest experiment that would test your riskiest assumption? Arnon shares how to use early signals before revenue catches up, make the business case for technical debt, and navigate the growing overlap between engineering and product management.

In our conversation, we discuss:

1. Why understanding revenue and costs changes what engineers choose to build
2. How to judge customer problems by reach, pain and relative priority
3. Why customer requests need small experiments and clear product positioning
4. How leading metrics help you change direction before revenue catches up
5. How to connect technical debt and engineering decisions to business outcomes

Where to find Arnon Cavaeiro:
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/acavaeiro/

Where to find Peppe:
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/peppesilletti/
• X: https://x.com/peppesilletti
• Website: https://peppesilletti.io

Where to find The Product Engineers Podcast:
• Website: https://productengineers.com

In this episode, we cover:
(00:00) Introduction
(03:23) Why engineers need to understand the business
(07:15) Choosing problems worth solving
(09:56) Small experiments and risky assumptions
(13:16) Unused features, customer requests and positioning
(16:57) Building as thinking, prototypes and taste
(26:05) Outcomes, experiments and leading metrics
(35:33) Making the business case for technical debt
(41:40) Who owns product decisions?
(47:08) Closing thoughts and where to find Arnon

Referenced:
• Taste Labs: https://tastelabs.com/
• Linear: https://linear.app/