We often talk about the idea of collaboration in the context of software engineering. What does collaboration mean? As a noun, it can have the idea of "the action of working with someone to produce or create something". Software engineering by its definition needs collaboration to be successful, and on of the most crucial aspects of any leadership role in is ensuring strong collaboration between engineering and product teams.
It’s no secret that when these two groups work well together, we build better products, ship faster, and create an overall healthier work environment. Sometimes you can find organizations where its a "us" vs. "them" mentality, but teams that are able to successfully deliver are often aligned on the "together" mentality. But achieving that alignment isn’t always easy—it takes effort, intentionality, and a culture that supports open communication.
In my experience, when collaboration between engineering and product breaks down, it usually stems from one or more of the three following things: misaligned expectations, lack of transparency, or differences in priorities.
What do I mean by misaligned expectations? It could be feature and functional misalignment due to lack of clarity around documentation, acceptance criteria, product roadmap and delivery. It could be that engineers might feel like product managers (PMs) are pushing unrealistic timelines, while PMs might feel like engineers are focusing too much on technical perfection at the expense of delivery.
What are some examples that demonstrate a lack of transparency? If PMs do not share business rationale behind certain priorities or engineers withhold technical constraints until late in development then there is going to be frustration and a feeling of "why didn't you tell us this sooner!".
Priority differences such as product managers prioritizing feature delivery to meet market demands while engineers emphasize technical debt reduction and long-term system scalability can also create challenges to good collaboration.
To help, I’ve found several practical strategies that build collaboration and create a shared sense of ownership.
1. Establish a Shared Vision
The first step in fostering collaboration is ensuring that both teams are aligned on the bigger picture. When engineers and product managers share an understanding of the business goals and user needs, decisions become much easier. I make it a priority to regularly reinforce the "why" behind our work—whether it’s through roadmap discussions, user feedback sessions, or meetings where leadership shares company objectives. Why are we doing this? Why are we doing this now? Why are we doing this in this way? When the team understands the "why" it goes a long way to buy-in to the vision that is being described and helps both teams stay focused on what truly matters.
2. Encourage Cross-Team Communication Early and Often
Too often, engineering and product teams operate in silos, only coming together at specific points in the development cycle. We'll go create the product requirements and the UX design and then we'll bring in engineering. Or, we'll just do this re-factor inline with this work that we're already doing, it shouldn't be too much and then...it is! Avoiding these scenarios means we have to talk early, often, and regularly. How can we do that in the context of work we both want to accomplish? I advocate for continuous collaboration:
- Joint backlog refinement sessions ensure engineers have early visibility into upcoming work and can provide input before requirements are set in stone. When engineers know what will be considered for refinement in advance, and prioritize taking time to provide comments and feedback to product, we can get a lot of details straightened out even before refinement sessions.
- Design and technical discovery sessions give engineers and product managers a chance to align on feasibility, complexity, and potential trade-offs. Have these sessions as early as is possible, even if all of the business cases and uses are not yet defined. Favor having "discovery" sessions vs. "hand-off" sessions. Discovery in my mind implies we work together to figure out how we want to do this, vs. one party is telling the other how to get the work done.
- Daily stand-ups or weekly syncs keep both teams connected and prevent surprises from derailing progress. Use these opportunities to really communicate about what is happening, reinforce the why again, and allow the psychological safety to clearly communicate risks, concerns and blockers between the teams.
Keeping communication frequent and proactive reduces misunderstandings and leads to better decision-making.
3. Build Empathy Through Shared Experiences
Understanding each other’s challenges is key to strong collaboration. I encourage engineers to sit in on customer calls or read through support tickets to gain insight into real user pain points. If you have metrics or analytics or other ways of understanding the users journey through your software application, use those to gain better understanding into what is happening. Likewise, I think that there can be value in having PMs to join architecture discussions or debugging sessions to see firsthand the technical complexities engineers navigate. These shared experiences build mutual respect and help both teams appreciate the constraints and trade-offs the other is dealing with.
4. Clarify Roles and Responsibilities
One of the biggest sources of tension between engineering and product teams is ambiguity around who owns what. Clear delineation of responsibilities prevents friction and ensures smoother collaboration. In my teams, we follow a model where:
- PMs own the "what" and "why"—defining the problems to solve, setting priorities, and ensuring alignment with business goals.
- Engineers own the "how"—determining the best technical implementation, making trade-offs, and ensuring scalability and performance.
- Both teams collaborate on "when"—realistically scoping and planning releases based on effort and impact.
By establishing clear expectations, we reduce conflicts and enable each team to do what they do best.
5. Promote a Culture of Psychological Safety
Collaboration thrives in an environment where people feel safe to voice concerns, ask questions, and challenge assumptions. I make it a point to foster open dialogue by:
- Encouraging constructive feedback and retrospectives after every project.
- Actively listening to both engineers and PMs when they raise concerns.
- Leading by example—admitting when I don’t have all the answers and showing a willingness to learn.
When teams trust each other, they’re more likely to work through disagreements productively and find the best solutions together.
6. Celebrate Wins Together
Too often, engineering and product teams operate with a "handoff" mentality—product defines, engineering builds, and then they move on to the next thing. To foster a true sense of partnership, I make sure both teams celebrate wins together. Whether it’s a successful launch, a major performance improvement, or simply a great customer response, recognizing contributions from both sides strengthens collaboration and morale.
At the end of the day, engineering and product teams are working toward the same goal: building great products that deliver value to users. When we move beyond the “us vs. them” mindset and invest in communication, empathy, and shared ownership, we create a partnership that leads to better outcomes for everyone. It takes effort, but the payoff is well worth it.
If you’ve found strategies that work well for fostering collaboration between engineering and product teams, I’d love to hear them!