As engineering, product, design, DS, etc. melt into a new kind of role, I was reflecting on what roles might look like in the future. For example, when I look at the Claude Code team I see what I think is five archetypes: 1. Prototyper: comes up with brand new ideas; churns out many ideas, most of which don't ship 2. Builder: quickly turns a prototype/idea into production-grade product/infra 3. Sweeper: cleans up the UI, simplifies the code and system, unships, optimizes performance 4. Grower: takes a product that has been built and iterates on it to improve Product-Market Fit 5. Maintainer: owns a mature system to make it secure, reliable, fast, and efficient as it scales Many people span across 2 roles, and sometimes 3 roles. I also notice that these roles are not really tied to job function -- eg. across Anthropic, some designers match category 1, some 2, some 3; same for engineers, PM, DS. A healthy team needs a mix of these, depending on the product: - A product that is new and pre-PMF needs people that are strong at 1+2+3 - A product that is growing and has found PMF needs 2+3+4 and some 5 - A product that has strong PMF needs 3+4+5 and some 2 Maybe product roles of the future will look more like this, and less like the domain-specific roles of today?
随着 engineering、product、design、DS 等逐渐融成一种新型角色，我一直在想，未来的角色形态可能会是什么样。比如，当我看 Claude Code 团队时，我会看到我认为存在的五种 archetype（原型角色）：1. Prototyper：提出全新的想法；大量产出点子，其中大多数不会真正发布 2. Builder：快速把 prototype（原型）/idea 变成达到生产标准的 product/infra（基础设施） 3. Sweeper：清理 UI、简化代码和系统、下线功能、优化性能 4. Grower：接手一个已经做出来的产品，持续迭代，以提升 Product-Market Fit（产品市场契合度） 5. Maintainer：负责一个成熟系统，使它在规模扩张时依然安全、可靠、快速且高效。很多人会横跨 2 种角色，有时甚至 3 种。我也注意到，这些角色其实并不真正绑定某种 job function（职能）——比如在 Anthropic，不少 designer 属于第 1 类，有些属于第 2 类，有些属于第 3 类；engineer、PM、DS 也是一样。一个健康的团队需要这些角色的组合，而且会因产品不同而不同：- 一个全新、且处于 pre-PMF（PMF 前）阶段的产品，需要擅长 1+2+3 的人 - 一个正在增长、并且已经找到 PMF 的产品，需要 2+3+4，以及一些 5 - 一个拥有强 PMF 的产品，需要 3+4+5，以及一些 2。也许未来的 product 角色会更像这样，而不像今天这种按领域细分的角色？