Learning Track: Building Software Products
You'll learn: How to make positive contributions to your product roadmap.
Learning Track information is split up into 4 sections, organized by how it important it is to know each bit; peruse at your own leisure.
Foundations
Core concepts every PM should understand about software development, including code basics, internet infrastructure, APIs, and version control
What you need to know
- The top 5 things PMs should know about engineeringFree
Engineering and code basics that can make you a better PM to work with.
- What's code?
Code is step by step directions, but for computers.
- What's the internet?
A network of computers all connected to each other and sharing information.
- What's cloud?Free
Cloud is how companies rent infrastructure over the internet.
A better way to save progress than Powerpoint.
Understanding the open source software movement and its impact on modern development
How companies like Stripe win by writing better product docs, and where platforms like GitBook can help.
What's nice to know
- The beginners guide to open source licenses
A breakdown of how open source licensing changed, and why it matters now.
Frontends vs backends
Understanding the distinction between frontend and backend development, and how features get implemented across both layers
What you need to know
- The Details: Frontends and Backends
The basics of how apps are built by their component parts.
Frontend
Introduction to modern frontend development concepts including React and web applications
What you need to know
- What's HTML?
A great way to prank your friends (and build websites)
- Whats CSS?
Making the internet look pretty since 1996.
- What's React
The most popular way to build interactive web apps.
What you should know
Backend
Comprehensive overview of backend technologies including databases, APIs, authentication, and data management tools
What you need to know
- What's NoSQL?
NoSQL is databases with no rules and no required structure.
- The Details: production databases (SQL and NoSQL)
A deep dive into the databases that power our apps.
- The Excel User's Guide to Databases: Schemas
Why that schema change is going to take your engineers two weeks.
Deployment
Modern deployment practices and technologies including containers, Kubernetes, observability, and serverless architecture
What you should know
- What happens when an app goes down? All about outagesFree
Death, taxes, and outages: why being a software engineer isn't always so cushy.
- What is Observability?Free
Observability is how businesses know what’s going on with their different systems and operations.
- The Vercel update post: the AI cloudFree
How Vercel went from deploying apps to redefining how we build them.
- What's CI/CD?
CI and CD are philosophies for building and deploying apps quickly and safely.
- The Details: CI
CI is how developers test and verify their code is ready to go.
Building for Enterprise
Essential knowledge for enterprise software development including compliance and certification requirements
What's nice to know
- The not-app-building parts of building an appFree
Large customers require engineers to build several acronyms.
- What's a SOC 2 certification?Free
Companies get a SOC 2 report to show off how secure and compliant their processes are to potential customers.
What you should know
- A Beginner’s Guide to Bring Your Own Cloud
The profitable but challenging deployment model sweeping the nation.
Analytics
Understanding product analytics implementation, session replay technology, and data team tools
What you should know
- How do product analytics work?Free
Product analytics is how teams instrument and analyze data about their product usage.
What's nice to know
- What your data team is using: the analytics stackFree
A deep dive into all of the tools that data teams use to do their work.
How apps talk to one another and data moves between systems.
What you should know
- The Excel User's Guide to Databases: Migrations
Why your feature is held up by a migration and why this is actually good.
- APIs for the rest of us
A beginner's guide to APIs and making requests.
- The Excel User's Guide to Databases: Databases and APIs
What's the point of an API if you have a database?
- How does authentication work?Free
Authentication is the logistics of accounts, logins, and signups: how an app knows who you are.
A deep dive into PaaS and how developers avoid managing infrastructure.
A deep dive into why code reviews take so long, how AI tools like CodeRabbit are speeding them up, and what great teams do to ensure clean code.
The deceptively simple text files that help you avoid huge mistakes when shipping software.
What's nice to know
- What's Docker, and what are containers?Free
Containers helps developers run code in isolated boxes so it works the same every time.
- What's Kubernetes?Free
How developers turn their individual containers into full fledged, working applications.
- What's Serverless?Free
A catch-all term for apps and products that don’t require you to manage your own servers.
Foundations
Core concepts every PM should understand about software development, including code basics, internet infrastructure, APIs, and version control
- The top 5 things PMs should know about engineeringFree
Engineering and code basics that can make you a better PM to work with.
- What's code?
Code is step by step directions, but for computers.
- What's the internet?
A network of computers all connected to each other and sharing information.
- What's cloud?Free
Cloud is how companies rent infrastructure over the internet.
- What's an API?Free
APIs take inputs and give you predictable outputs.
- What's version control and Github?
A better way to save progress than Powerpoint.
- What's open source?Free
Understanding the open source software movement and its impact on modern development
- What's documentation?Free
How companies like Stripe win by writing better product docs, and where platforms like GitBook can help.
- The beginners guide to open source licenses
A breakdown of how open source licensing changed, and why it matters now.
- What's a Package Manager?Free
And why are AI labs buying them up?
Frontends vs backends
Understanding the distinction between frontend and backend development, and how features get implemented across both layers
Frontend
Introduction to modern frontend development concepts including React and web applications
- What's HTML?
A great way to prank your friends (and build websites)
- Whats CSS?
Making the internet look pretty since 1996.
- What's React
The most popular way to build interactive web apps.
- What's a web app?Free
How the apps you access in your browser actually work.
- What's Javascript?Free
From humble origins to the most popular programming language in the world.
- What is Next.js?Free
The web framework your next vibe-coded app will probably be built in.
Backend
Comprehensive overview of backend technologies including databases, APIs, authentication, and data management tools
- The Beginner's Guide to DatabasesFree
There are 300+ databases; what do they all do?
- What's a relational database?Free
How most developers store and analyze application data.
- What's NoSQL?
NoSQL is databases with no rules and no required structure.
- The Details: production databases (SQL and NoSQL)
A deep dive into the databases that power our apps.
- The Excel User's Guide to Databases: Schemas
Why that schema change is going to take your engineers two weeks.
- What's GraphQL?Free
GraphQL makes regular APIs simpler and more organized.
- What are webhooks?Free
Webhooks are a way for apps to automatically send data to other apps.
- What are integrations, and how do they work?Free
How apps talk to one another and data moves between systems.
- What's an ORM?Free
An ORM translates database talk into application talk.
- The Excel User's Guide to Databases: Migrations
Why your feature is held up by a migration and why this is actually good.
- APIs for the rest of us
A beginner's guide to APIs and making requests.
- The Excel User's Guide to Databases: Databases and APIs
What's the point of an API if you have a database?
- How does authentication work?Free
Authentication is the logistics of accounts, logins, and signups: how an app knows who you are.
Deployment
Modern deployment practices and technologies including containers, Kubernetes, observability, and serverless architecture
- What happens when an app goes down? All about outagesFree
Death, taxes, and outages: why being a software engineer isn't always so cushy.
- What is Observability?Free
Observability is how businesses know what’s going on with their different systems and operations.
- The Vercel update post: the AI cloudFree
How Vercel went from deploying apps to redefining how we build them.
- What's CI/CD?
CI and CD are philosophies for building and deploying apps quickly and safely.
- The Details: CI
CI is how developers test and verify their code is ready to go.
- The Details: Platform as a Service (PaaS)
A deep dive into PaaS and how developers avoid managing infrastructure.
- Developers hate this one thing (all about code reviews)Free
A deep dive into why code reviews take so long, how AI tools like CodeRabbit are speeding them up, and what great teams do to ensure clean code.
- All about Infrastructure as CodeFree
The deceptively simple text files that help you avoid huge mistakes when shipping software.
- What's Docker, and what are containers?Free
Containers helps developers run code in isolated boxes so it works the same every time.
- What's Kubernetes?Free
How developers turn their individual containers into full fledged, working applications.
- What are microservices?Free
How teams separate their apps into independent, interacting services.
- What's Serverless?Free
A catch-all term for apps and products that don’t require you to manage your own servers.
Building for Enterprise
Essential knowledge for enterprise software development including compliance and certification requirements
- The not-app-building parts of building an appFree
Large customers require engineers to build several acronyms.
- What's a SOC 2 certification?Free
Companies get a SOC 2 report to show off how secure and compliant their processes are to potential customers.
- A Beginner’s Guide to Bring Your Own Cloud
The profitable but challenging deployment model sweeping the nation.
Analytics
Understanding product analytics implementation, session replay technology, and data team tools
- How do product analytics work?Free
Product analytics is how teams instrument and analyze data about their product usage.
- How does session replay work?Free
The magic behind the qualitative side of product analytics.
- What your data team is using: the analytics stackFree
A deep dive into all of the tools that data teams use to do their work.