How to develop product acumen as a software engineer?

I work in the Product Analyst for a US based startup. I have not had anything to do for the last one week, while my team that comprises of Dev and Design folks have a lot of work. I feel very useless in the office. My company would be glad to have me contribute to design or development but I don’t have the skillsets for it. My question to the ones reading this here, is if I must acquire the design skills(Figma) or development skills(Frontend) and contribute to the product development efforts simultaneously expanding my skillset or acquire product management skills and build my profile well as the natural career progression of my job is in and towards Product management(especially considering that I am a fresher and I don’t have any prior product experience). I wish to stay in the Product field in foreseeable future. Please help me out with this folks, TIA!

been working at a product based startup as the only ui/ ux designer for over 6 months now. work is usually solving for and designing new features, or thinking redesign from user grievances. the products were already designed for them by an agency before my joining and feel poorly designed to me, but does the job for the users. decisions regarding usage and the how-tos of implementation are taken by the product leads. in such a scenario, i don't see myself taking product decisions, but i try to suggest my ideas (mostly accepted) when we frame the requirements and solutions. how do i grow from just largely only designing what my leads tell me, to actually making an impact with the products we have? background- i'm an electronics engineer, landed a design internship at a startup a little before graduation and they offered a full time role after. accepted it over my placement and it's been over 6 months in this role. thanks & cheers :)

I am PM with around 5 yrs of experience. I’m struggling to take my skill to next level. always receive feedback from management that output isn’t good, mostly that UX isn’t good. what can I do to improve my work? 1. Read books ? 2. Study successful products from outside ? 3. Listen to podcasts 4. Work with great product people? but hardly these exist 5. leave this field altogether? 6. Just have patience and keep learning everyday? Can experienced people share what has worked out well for them? or point me to some directions?

I am from a non-tech background (finance guy to be specific). I am aiming big and want to start a fintech startup but I don't have any CS engineer friends to rely on. I invite you all to guide me how to find a tech co-founder or even a partial-CTO who can program my vision into an app and also maintain it until I can afford a full time one. I know that I can get it done with any software company but I have trust issues in sharing my idea with a stranger (knowing that how easily can an idea be stolen).

If i have to be interview ready for senior Product role in a week. What would you suggest me start with? I have read the decode and conquer and how to crack the PM interview. I come from technical background. Any practical insights would great.

I have 10years of work ex totally into FE. Outside India, there are a lot of IC roles and Architect roles for Frontend Devs but not the same in India. Wonder what role do they transition to given they have been totally into FE. Moving to Backend doesnt make sense IMO. Manager option is for Backend folks. Almost all the openings I see for Tech Managers, their requirements revolve around backend tech.

Really excited to do this! Here's a little bit about my career: - I dropped out of college to build a design studio with 20+ people for 4 years before leaving that to start another studio. - I’ve worked across most major startups in Bangalore (not including brand names here for anonymity) - I’ve worked across brand identity design, UX/UI, social media marketing, ad films, animation/motion graphics, and 3D Happy to answer questions about design, freelancing, starting an agency/studio, the design industry, etc.

Do you feel like your work as a frontend engineer is meaningful and impactful enough towards the product you are building? I feel like in most companies BE work is treated as more important. Most of your performance bottlenecks and production issues would also be related to Backend and hence those who work on it get more visibility. I feel as an FE all my work is being limited till the feature is being developed and after that you just move to the next one. Kinda feeling bad about it.

Hey there! We have openings at Juniper Networks for Software Engineer 3, 4, Tech Lead, and Software Engineer Test 4 roles on our team. If you feel one of this role suits you, please fill out this form https://forms.gle/qawRX2MnfeQrkS698

Hi Grapevine, I'm Arnav, Director of Engg at Jio Cinema. I previously exited my startup to Scaler. Some of you may know me from ScalerPod. I've also led engineering teams at Zomato & Target. Here to chat with you about my journey in startups, leading engineering teams, and products at scale, among other things. Ask me your question. I'll be back at 8 pm and begin answering!