[Music]
foreign
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thanks for joining for those of you who
don't know I'm Paige from Y combinator
where I work on our work at a startup
team essentially the team helping all of
our Founders hire great people like you
so this is why I become a product
engineer
this event was inspired because
even at YC we hire product engineers and
a lot of times candidates don't know
what that role means today we have two
wonderful Founders at YC companies who
will share their experiences and kind of
give more color behind what it means to
be a product engineer at their companies
so I'm James I'm the co-founder and CTO
at Valley
um I'm casava I'm one of the co-founders
and the CEO of illumini
awesome yeah so I'm just going to kind
of talk a little bit about uh volley
specifically for a minute just to give
you the context there
um
um this is volley
um we make games for Amazon Alexa and
Google home
um and we're kind of a game studio in
that sense uh we have a bunch of
products uh right now you're seeing song
quiz which is one of our most popular
um games on on both platforms uh it's a
name that tune game this is Magic where
it's like a little uh word game
um and this is Hash sort of showing that
you can play our games on fire TVs as
well uh so anything with a microphone uh
we're trying to make voice control the
entertainment voice controlled games
um we have a lot of products I guess
which is why uh we have a lot of uh
product Engineers working at Valley
um and you know you can kind of check
out our website uh yourself but this
shows a bit about our most popular
products so song quiz like I said is
kind of a name that tune music trivia
game super popular with families and
friends it's like a social experience
you can kind of play it in your living
room and you can have a great evening
kind of just trying to guess the artists
and the titles of popular music
um we also license a lot of brands from
popular game shows that you probably
will be familiar with so we have a game
for The Price is Right and for Jeopardy
for who Wants To Be A Millionaire Wheel
of Fortune are You Smarter Than A Fifth
Grader and then we also have like really
casual games like question of the day
which is like a daily trivia question we
even have sort of stories that are um
controlled on your Alexa and Google home
for kids and Families trying to go to
sleep so uh tons of stuff there's even
more down here you can check it out
um but yeah that's basically uh the
overview of the the company uh we went
through Y combinator in uh winter 2018
uh so we've been around for a while
um we're you know pretty uh big at least
in my my view now I mean the biggest
company I've worked at which is uh you
know 70 people or so
um and uh we're based in San Francisco
uh headquartered there but we're pretty
hybrid right now so like half of our
employees are uh spread around the globe
um primarily in the US but we've got
people everywhere and uh we also
um you know our hybrid even in the Bay
Area so people are kind of coming into
the office you know two to three days a
week
um it's been working really well
um I can talk a lot more about this
later on but we have this uh kind of
structure to the company that that I
think is similar to a lot of other game
studios where there's a lot of little
small autonomous individual teams uh
that are kind of working on individual
products at the company
um and that's kind of how we've been
able to scale our product catalog pretty
quickly
um to kind of become the leader in this
new emerging space of voice controlled
entertainment uh so yeah that's what
we're working on
um happy to dig in on any of those
topics but uh just wanted to give the
overview first
um I've I put together a little deck
quickly that I thought it can and run
through but um fundamentally uh what
alumni does is we take any kind of
multi-click multi-step repetitive manual
process and and make it one click
um but before I tell you uh why and how
we do this just wanted to share a quick
story so I grew up in the southern part
of India so most of my family are all
sort of coconut Farmers um so for the
longest time until I was like 10 years
old basically
um uh you know I lived in a coconut Farm
then uh when I was 11 my parents kind of
you know moved up to the city in in uh
for the state I'm from and sort of
stumbled upon Rubik's Cubes uh and got
very good at solving Rubik's Cubes um
ended up kind of breaking a bunch of
world records and as a captain of the
international team and got to kind of
travel the world I'll I'll funded by the
government and um that sort of Landon
Bean going to this high school called
the United World college and it says
high school that brings together people
from from you know 70 different
countries to work on International peace
and understanding
um after I graduated I was like okay
what's the craziest thing I could do to
like live this United World College
Mission which was to promote peace and
so very naively decided to kind of cycle
from Europe to Asia uh to promote peace
uh and uh recycle about you know 2500
miles across these nine countries and
because of that kind of landed in the
Bay Area for like a summit
um and when I came here I kind of fell
in love with Silicon Valley and
um and uh you know no work visa no no
money
um but sort of was like let's figure out
a way to kind of continue being here um
ended up actually living off of
hackathon prize money for six seven
months and and sort of the first project
that kind of came out of it um or so the
the project that actually started to
make money that came out of it uh became
what we're working on today um which is
lumini so uh sort of fast forward to you
know um we're doing today
um you know the reason I mentioned that
story is because you know ever since I
was 10 kind of efficiencies kind of
embedded in in my personality
um it's it's primarily because of some
of these like you know in the end of the
day when you sort of start talking to
some of the teams you work with
um primarily you know customer service
um customer experience organizations
um they face you know three or four
problems so the first one um is that
they have you know four or five six
different systems uh that they jump
between to find information and then
perform uh tasks associated with their
jobs
um and you know uh unfortunately this is
almost close to 50 or 60 percent of a
customer service agents kind of blob uh
and they only spend about 50 actually
talking to customers
um the second is sort of you know they
spend a lot of time getting onboarded
and ramped up uh to be able to uh you
know actually do their job uh the third
is you know engineering resources to
build support tooling is close to zero
um obviously you know engineers want to
work on product
and and so you know most most folks
don't end up actually building any of
the internal tooling the final is sort
of security and compliance like you must
have you might have seen the OCTA
support breakout
um but sort of the big hack that
happened with OCTA and the primary
reason was because uh the support team
uh they're all tier one agents in in
countries that are not in the US and
they sort of have access to customer
data and financial data that is very
very sensitive um and the sort of yields
like you know sometimes tens of millions
if not hundreds of millions millions of
dollars uh in support uh with an
increased you know average handle time
and lower customer satisfaction score so
what we ended up building
um was this external layer that sat on
top of these existing systems to take
any kind of multi-click multi-step
process and make it one click and we do
this using this technology we built
called robotic process automation
um and the reason this is sort of
important in the context of product
Engineers is because we are a very
productive event driven org we actually
everybody we hire for regardless of
whether you're technical or not actually
goes through a product interview because
we fundamentally believe that you know
everybody should be able to actually
understand why uh you are building the
kinds of things you're building for the
customers and so we have this even even
internally we ensure that every single
person at the company uh is is having
FaceTime with the customer on a weekly
basis
um you know we've raised about 20
million dollars we're backed by some of
the best um folks folks in the valley
um all the way from you know General
Catalyst to craft and and YC's
continuity fund
um and you know this is sort of talking
a little bit about one of the you know
uh one of the customers who work with is
this very breakout high growth company
called whatnot
um that you know um started with us when
there were kind of 15 agents or so and
now they're in the hundreds of agents
and and uh you know uh one of the things
that these teams uh mentioned you know
is that we're actually giving back the
creative Joy of being a customer service
agent because the end of the day when
you when you talk to these folks they
like joined and decided to do this job
because they want to talk to customers
and solve their problems but over 50 of
their time they're actually not doing
that
um so we're a little over you know half
a million 600k in Revenue um we're
working with customers you probably know
of you know Strava ordering um whatnot
as I mentioned um we're also going to be
uh we're just starting to work with uh
door National Carta um and you know the
next time you kind of order from
doordash and and you want to refund uh
they're gonna be processing all of that
through illumini so
um just a fun fact there um finally you
know why you should join us um we've
grown sort of 5x in the last five months
but what I'm really proud of at Lumina
is actually that product culture uh and
and that comes from one underlying
factor is that we're a 15 person team
but we actually have six former YC
Founders at alumni
um and you know that drives this
unbelievable amount of sort of
um want to be customer obsessed and have
this uh very humble um but very very
um you know urgent and and and
incredibly quick culture
um and so that you know uh kind of
drives us uh as a company
um you know we're looking for sort of uh
obviously uh you know I would hear
product Engineers but also looking for
folks to come in and and lead some of
the teams we've built so far so you can
find us here and uh I'll pass it back to
Paige I think to switch it up
okay awesome now let's start with the
first first question for the two of you
what is a product engineer
um sure I can I can jump in um
at volley
um product engineering is super core to
how we structured our engineering org
um so like I said we have you know
dozens of games and entertainment
experiences on Alexa and Google home
um and each of them are especially like
the top six that we are focused the most
on have their own product teams
um and uh most people most Engineers on
those teams are product Engineers
um but we also have this whole other
part of the engineering organization
that we call Core Tech
um which is really
um you know how we've decided to split
the organization we have core Tech and
product
um and everyone in these two separate
you know divisions is is an engineer a
software engineer but it wasn't that
helpful to just put up you know job or
export software Engineers when we really
do think of these two types of roles and
two divisions in the organization pretty
differently so
it's almost more helpful to start with
quartet where we have
um you know kind of the centralized like
team that's working on our game engine
so
um many of you may know game engine
companies like
um Unity or you know Unreal Engine
um and you know those companies tend to
be like selling the engine I mean you
know depending um but um to you know
licensing the engine to other companies
other game studios uh we were the first
company to really want to build an
engine that would run cross-platform on
Amazon Alexa and Google home and kind of
like make building games for these uh
smart speaker platforms a lot easier and
more efficient so we built our own
internal game engine for that purpose
and that's what the core Tech team is
primarily doing
um but they're also doing things like
figuring out uh hey how does that engine
get architect did and how does that it
get deployed into production uh how do
we debug how do we uh add features how
do we like
um make it flexible enough so that uh we
can build all the cool products that we
want to on top of it
um so there's a whole infrastructure
piece there's a whole devops piece and
then there's the engine development
itself
um and
on the flip side on the product
engineering side you know those that
those teams are really really focused on
using the engine to build amazing game
experiences so they're writing game
logic maybe they're working with product
management teams to design you know game
features right like a new game mode
um in Jeopardy we just launched the
ability to like do uh kind of a final
Jeopardy Style game mode
um we used to kind of like just give you
a set of six questions each day
um but the Final Jeopardy comes into
play at the end of the week where you
can kind of wager based on how much
money you've earned over the course of
the week and it's a whole new feature
that we've had to design and develop for
voice
um so that's an example of something you
might work on as a product engineer
whereas on the cortex side you'd be
maybe working on you know the underlying
systems that power all of our games
um and yeah we uh like I said we have
these kind of really small efficient
autonomous teams
um and the reason they can work so
quickly and efficiently on on customer
facing game logic and game features is
because we have this other core Tech
team that supports them and has solved a
lot of really thorny problems about
devops and deployment uh at scale so
it's two very different worlds but
they're tied very close together and
it's almost as if the uh you know the
product Engineers are customers of the
core Tech Engineers internally in the
company
so uh on on our end the way we're
actually structured is you know um we're
not large enough that we're starting to
separate any of these um and you know
probably there's you know a point where
um we will probably have to do that um
the same way probably you know Wally's
structured at the moment um but
um at lumini um what it means to be a
product engineer is that you're kind of
spending
um about you know uh 10 15 of your time
um actually studying the customer
um and spending time with customers uh
on a weekly basis um and so that means
going and looking at each of these
customer sort of um channels and these
communication setups um talking to users
um and and then taking those insights
um and then thinking about how does this
tie back into the business case right
longer term like how do we prioritize
like the types of things um we need to
build to drive the constant value
um and double down on the value that
we're today and then and then you take
that layer and you think about that and
then you actually go back down to
building a very you know in in our case
a consumerized Enterprise product
um and so uh right now you know we're
very very heavily uh focused on like a
you know producty uh uh org uh not just
within engineering but across the board
um so question from Carol um do you have
a product manager uh at the moment no um
and I think that's the that's the
advantage of sort of um where we are
today but uh I think uh uh we're
probably closer to that breaking point
of like realizing maybe we do need a PM
to start uh kind of tackling in so we
actually just put out a first job rack
for someone to come in and be a PM too
um but that product engineer piece will
continue to
um uh to be uh to be the case and then
uh to answer Scott
um yes it is a hybrid of software
engineer and a product manager but uh
more 80 probably engineering and
probably fifteen twenty percent uh being
a PM
and to kind of build off of that someone
had a question about how the role of a
product engineer might change for a
company that's pre-product Market fit um
pretty earlier on
um and a company that's a little later
stage
um any thoughts on on that one
for us like you know we started
um you know we were a product
engineering org from very pre-product
Market fit times to now I would say
we're sort of at the cusp of uh seeing a
very strong signs a product Market fit
just with the customers that we have and
the usage and the ROI that each of these
customers are getting
um so it definitely changes from like
everybody sitting in whiteboarding and
figuring out all the crazy ideas that
you want to do do a little more
structured on like how do you how do you
um you know how do you think about
roadmap how do you think about
um you know how do you think about the
next phase uh of uh or or you start
thinking a little bit uh in in months
rather than like days
um and so that probably is like one one
shift that's happened uh is that similar
James
um or do you guys have something
different yeah I mean it's really uh
kind of similar to or like it's
interesting to hear how you're set up
right now because I think that's how we
were at the same size company when we
were you know 10 to 15 people we didn't
have any PMS
um we were maybe just starting to like
ramp up the hiring there and part of the
huge benefits of like going specifically
um after hiring uh product engineers and
and embedding kind of like product type
um product sense uh kind of evaluations
into the hiring process was that you
know with you know you get these awesome
Engineers but they they can make those
decisions
um for themselves that are like that
maybe at larger companies would require
lots of check-ins with the product teams
and uh you know as a startup you want to
be moving a lot faster than that uh so
you want uh to almost like be testing
for this in the application process like
you know your initial Engineers do they
have a good taste on product and uh are
they making good customer facing
decisions uh because like not there's
not always going to be someone telling
them exactly what the spec is should be
like
um uh you know in the early days
um you know nowadays we've we've created
a lot more structure um which is which
is good I think we needed to
um we have scaled up to
um you know each team having multiple
product Engineers a product lead and a
data analyst so each game essentially
has those uh discrete teams um and they
are able to kind of create a lot of
their own sort of rituals around uh you
know uh their roadmap and uh their kpis
and you know their timelines and they're
moving really quickly
um but it's yeah it's kind of that
studio model except it's internal right
like each game has its own
um kind of dedicated resources on
product analytics and um and product
engineering essentially and then there's
the uh underlying infrastructure team
that supports all of our games sort of
have crossed the company and that's been
working really well the the thing that
we've done to kind of standardize this
so it doesn't get too crazy is we have
this quarterly uh kind of
kpi cycle essentially uh stolen from YC
we call it demo day so if you're
familiar with demo YC there's a demo day
at the end of the uh the batch and you
present it to investors for us
internally we actually do that with each
game with each team we you know have the
uh the teams present the entire company
about what they were trying to achieve
that quarter and uh you know what they
tried what worked what didn't work did
they hit the kpi uh what they're going
to try the following quarter and you
know as we've scaled we've created a
little more structure to these like you
know these check-ins and uh you know
standardization across the games but at
the end of the day like the the product
Engineers themselves are still doing
very similar work to what they were
doing in the when we were 10 people
which is building great game and great
game features that are you know played
by the customer
uh I think uh I think the one thing that
um you know uh that's really interesting
uh that you mentioned I think that's
probably core to the product engineer
title in general is actually autonomy
um uh I think it's probably the the real
differentiator between like a software
engineer and like a product engineer is
like the ability to go from like zero to
one without necessarily like you know
having to have like check-ins with like
five different sets of organizations
it's like really giving the power to
like uh a technical person
um to be like hey like this is the
problem like figure it out and like you
know all going from zero to one I think
is like really the the big big
um change
yeah totally I think you're you're spot
on it's like
um you know we there's so many questions
that come up and and designing products
and uh you know when you're in an early
stage team it's almost it's often more
important that you just make the
decision and commit to it and make it
fast rather than
um you know get it perfect or get it
right before you launch or you know to
even test it perfectly like just the
reality of early stage pre-product
Market fit startups is you you need to
be moving super quickly
um and uh you know that means that
um you're you're probably creating
problems down the line but for yourself
but that's okay because like you might
not make it to that point
um unless you get the product out and
and learn from the customer
foreign
that makes a lot of sense
um and for some of the software
Engineers who haven't been as like
customer facing before what are some of
the things that can kind of help them
transition or think about like why they
might be more interested in a product
engineering role than just a software
engineering role
I think uh at least at lumini um you
know
I would say like about maybe about
engineering org uh about you know 70
percent are more introverted maybe even
80 more introverted 20 more like super
extroverted customer facing folks um and
I think the the interesting part is
actually
um when you're making the transition
from like not necessarily communicating
with like an external facing party who
you have a business relationship with
um and then transitioning into uh
context where you are communicating with
them actively it's pretty crazy how much
like customers love
um when like Engineers are actually
involved in the day-to-day like
collaboration
um because like Engineers like are the
heart and soul of like you know the
product that they're using and the fact
that they have a direct line access to
them in some in some form uh makes the
customer so much happier and so much
more open actually to accommodate uh
whatever sort of um style of community
education that they they want to have
but also uh uh all in all the reason I
say that is because uh as you make that
transition from software engineer to
customer engineer or product engineer
um it's actually pretty uh pretty wild
how welcoming that transition is
primarily because it's driven by the
customer uh in so many ways and
um you get to the heart and soul of like
why you're building what you're building
and the real impact that it actually has
like if you were to kind of build a
button right like you'll actually be
able to see like what does this like
little button do for like the hundreds
of thousands of people that like could
potentially be using it
um do all the way to like let's say you
like you know we're a very founder
driven organization like we we take we
take a lot of inspiration from Rippling
um and so we kind of have uh you know a
little bit of a business unit as kind of
um
um set up and so uh you can actually at
Lumina you can actually see like going
from fully from zero to one on
a new vertical potentially
um like for example right now in
customer service but the next sort of uh
opportunity we're going to be tackling
is actually sales Ops
um and like going from zero to one on
like taking what we've had and like
getting it getting it up and running
um you have that in that that that power
um and and it's pretty
um uh it's it's very very like sort of
uh uh a different set of challenges that
that I would say the new modern
businesses are kind of starting to nap
so it's more exciting than than scary
yeah and I can add that uh volley
um I think a good way to kind of prepare
for the product engineering role would
be you know if you're the type of
engineer who's already uh you know
thinking a lot about you know the
customer Journey right the um you know
the a lot of the uh problems that a
customer might face in an application I
think that's like a key skill set is
like you're maybe you're able to
um think of edge cases really really
effectively right because you know maybe
the customer is going to hit press this
button or get to this flow and uh it'll
be confusing or they won't you know
they're they won't know where they are
in the application or
um it'll cause some issue Downstream
like those types of thinking that type
of like customer focused thinking is
really important for a product engineer
um and you can do it just in whatever
engineering role you're in right now
already
um just kind of putting yourself in the
shoes of the customer or the you know
user in in the gameplay there in our
case
and you can also kind of like think of
it as
um you know something you can practice
just by you know using apps yourself you
know when whether it's a consumer facing
app or
um on your phone or you know a work
application that you're using all the
time like you know thinking about the
feature set and what parts are hard and
difficult and why they were coded in
certain ways
um can be really valuable like you know
especially at your your current job like
being able to you know feedback feedback
suggestions up to the product leads to
the product managers to
um suggest you know product improvements
or ask the questions of like why why was
this design this way I think that's the
the best practice for the types of
decision making and thought processes
you'll have to go through as a product
engineer uh specifically
great um and this is sort of related but
a little different um so so if someone
is
a product manager and has kind of been
in that role
um what are some signs maybe that they
would be interested in becoming a
product engineer again and what are some
technical skills that product managers
might want to gain or freshen up on
before they move into product
engineering
uh generally I think uh I've sort of
seen the the other transition and just
like going from engineer to PM I think
uh PM back to product Engineers actually
I would say like
probably way more effective because
you're kind of if you are like uh by
background Technical and but you've been
doing like PM work
um then you've already gained all the
like necessary like organizational
Frameworks
um to like run a product org but then
now you're actually going back into the
weeds and and building
um which I think is like
very very like it's I think that the
signs are very simple which is like if
you're having this itch to go back to
want to truly kind of get your hands
ready and build again
um in in so many in so many uh ways but
also not loser that not lose the the
product touch and the the want to talk
to customers regularly
um making that switches uh probably uh
very exciting
um I mean on the technical side I think
you just need to kind of be
um up to date with sort of what what
folks are using to build um you know we
we kind of use the most modern kind of
react node.js typescript
um stack but that's like most most
companies
um in in case the the SAS world
yeah I mean seconded uh here as well uh
at volley it's it's node typescript
react
um those are the key Technologies to be
aware of that you know to join a lot of
startups like if you're if you're uh
caught up to speed on those Tech that
Tech stack you're gonna get a lot of uh
interest uh as a uh you know PM who's
interested in going back into
engineering or you know learning uh you
know switching into engineering and I
think it just
um yeah it's just like such a powerful
skill set to have
um especially if you are you know
working on customer facing features like
I think it's more it's like if you've
been a PM and you're now going to come
in as a product engineer you're going to
be like probably uh interfacing with
customers
um potentially you know like
um you know doing customer interviews
potentially or um you know just
designing the features that that are
closest to the customer it's really
valuable maybe more so than if you were
gonna go in to like infrastructure
engineering or devops or something like
that
cool if you think of your one or two top
product Engineers what are the skills
that they really excel at or like what
is what are their superpowers
so
I think on on our team we actually had a
recent YC founder join us
um who was the CTO of a company and and
um you know it's been like three months
since he joined us and it's pretty like
except he's been like exceptional
um and I would say that the the reason
um why uh that kind of ram time from
going to zero to them being exceptional
happened so quickly
um was permanently I would I would say
very much driven by ownership and a
curiosity to
um like understand the the core customer
problem before doing writing any line of
code it's like a very like yc-esque
mentality which was like okay like
here's the problems you're telling me
let me go and figure out if that's
that's really like like from an
engineering standpoint really how
um we should be approaching this right
and so
um basically you know we we had we built
a core sort of uh V1 uh robotic plus
automation engine
um that we kind of defined as our longer
term mode that like continuous
continuously will get better
um and so he went in and kind of like
dug deep into like actually figuring out
if that all kind of last and become uh
become uh will grow with our customer
base
um especially because you know when
you're so early uh in the journey like
like we went from like like basically
our with the with onboarding doordash
our user base is going to 10x like over
like a month period like and when you're
kind of dealing with that kind of
um scale on a month on month kind of
basis like uh you everything is going to
break very very quickly
um and so you got to start like being a
little more proactive especially in in
our world which is like and maybe in the
games world too but like I think in our
world like if a customer service like
system is down for like five minutes
you're talking about like hundreds of
customers not being able to reach you
um and that's like
potentially like losing customers like
potentially like hundreds of thousands
of dollars or maybe more in in business
impact
um and so when you're dealing with that
kind of uh scale it's uh it's very very
core um to be able to understand that
problem and I think the person who
joined our team was able to like really
really take that and then uh reshape and
kind of build our our PA engine like 2.0
um in the last kind of three months um
to get ready for the next phase and the
I think the other part of it which was
like the awareness of like him also
saying hey uh to me is okay case about
like you know like yes like you know
um uh you know we'll build this is a new
engine but this will probably scale for
up to this point and then we'll probably
have to like rebuild again right like
and just having that awareness is also
like probably very very key
yeah I think that's uh spot on is like
understanding the customer also like you
know being very data driven I think it's
just become a must in the uh current
world and startups especially and you
know I think when you're on a smaller
team you know there's probably like one
or two or three maybe at most you know
top metrics that you're trying to like
really grow especially as you're trying
to achieve product Market fit or you're
trying to get to the next round of
fundraising like you know everyone tries
to be very focused on improving uh you
know a set of metrics
um and everyone should be super aligned
on that so a product engineer
um who's really effective is going to be
laser focused on the you know the work
that needs to be done uh to move that
metric uh whatever it is in your company
uh for us at volley it's things like you
know how many people are converting and
buying a subscription in our games and
uh how many people are retaining on the
subscription essentially paying multiple
months over months so you know those
whatever that kind of focus of the
business is you know you want to be
super aligned there and uh
whether it's like you know figuring out
what are the trade-offs like if you're
going to work on one thing or the other
like how much does that affect the
business metrics um and uh you know
maybe there won't be you know the
product manager product lead telling you
exact making that trade-off decision for
you you need to be a little bit more
focused on uh you know letting the
product letting product people in the
company know or Business Leaders in the
company know like what what how long
this feature will take and what the
trade-offs are in terms of How likely we
are to hit our goals uh for the for the
quarter of the year
um so that's kind of like really
important is to have that mindset of
like you know being close to caring a
lot about the business metrics I think
um that maybe differentiates the role a
little bit more from you know maybe you
know more uh infrastructure oriented
roles um on our team at least
foreign from Alfonso here if you're able
to share what kind of kpis do you use
for product product development
yeah
um so I'm among all the ones that I
mentioned you know it's you know we're
selling subscriptions so we're kind of a
freemium model
um and you know essentially when a
player discovers our game they get a
free experience and then we're trying to
upsell them into a subscription
um you know it's really similar to like
the mobile app store in-app purchase
model uh and you see this a lot on
consumer
um Technologies consumer startups uh the
subscription model is super effective so
but there's really clear it's almost
like SAS metrics if you're familiar with
SAS metrics like they apply pretty well
to the kind of consumer subscription
model
um so you know how many people are
converting into the uh into the
subscription and uh you know usually
it's a free trial so how much are How
likely are you to pay after the trial is
completed How likely there are you to
pay the following month or and also you
know you want to be looking at like
usage during the trial and usage during
the first month and those types of
metrics that kind of show you uh not
only like are you maintaining the
payment retention but the usage
retention as well uh so those are a lot
of the key things that we're looking at
um and also of course like a huge driver
of our business also is just like
discovery of our products so there's a
lot of work being done on marketing and
growth
um before the user even gets to a
product
um so there's a whole side of the
business there as well
oh yeah one thing I wanted to just add
was like a lot of our product Engineers
what they're what they're working on is
not necessarily just like designing and
shipping a feature for the game or not
you know just like feed uh building and
shipping a feature for the game
um in in collaboration with the product
leads but also like you know running a
lot of Av experiments right so if you're
someone who really enjoys that like you
know learning from the a b tests that
you're running in a product I think
that's a great place to you know explore
as a product engineer because you get to
run you get to run a lot of experiments
because like that's usually how we learn
about the kpis uh you know what what
drives the kpis and what we can do to
hit our goals is by running lots of a b
tests in the games
uh I think uh you know uh like Patrick
Collison who's like one of the founders
of stripe had recently like spoken at
like a YC reunion and like he's spoken
about like sort of um like what what
makes teams move fast
um and and the thing he said was like
it's it's like knowing knowing what like
a customer wants uh figuring out the
solution to that problem uh building it
uh launching it and then actually
knowing if it worked
um and that Loop uh the faster and
faster and faster you do uh the the more
progress you're able to make as a
company and so that's something we track
very actively at the company is just
like going from zero to one on like no
like defining and scoping like this is
what we're gonna solve for and then
actually like releasing it and investing
and surveying if this actually solved
that problem like that Loop is something
that we Define as like in some form like
a kpi uh we look at just like from
product engineer lens um but then other
things we care about obviously are like
you know who are very like uh numbers
driven org and what that means is you
know you know in the end of the day
we're driving efficiency we're driving
uh return on investment
um and so these are folks that you know
before using alumini they were able to
get let's say
um a hundred kind of uh tickets uh done
uh now it's luminized let's say they do
124. um that's like a 24 increase
efficiency or whatever
um like that's something you're
constantly you know tracking
um which is like
um what does like usage look like what
does ROI look like for each of these
customers
um and how do we continue to kind of uh
double down and increase that um and so
uh so just like quick two things but
that's probably a few more
and transitioning uh to more of kind of
the career career side of working at
your companies and being a product
engineer what does the future of like
you join a company as a product engineer
than what
I would say at lumini you know
um we we have like it's something we
just started to define a little more
um clearly and probably it's like much
more scoped out at James's company
um but um I'm curious to hear but but
sort of we have two paths right maybe I
don't know yeah
um but uh you know uh there's sort of
the traditional sort of IC path right
which is like uh continuing to uh you
know uh continue to you know become Med
senior staff level engineer and continue
to influence product decisions uh
especially if you don't want to be a
manager
um right I think there's lots of lots of
folks um that we made with who are
exceptional who end up like getting
blocked at the at the top of their game
being like Oh like I don't really want
to manage but like I can't really do
anything after this like we believe
actually that like if you are a product
person like you can continue to
influence product very deeply without
necessarily wanting to manage folks
um and so that's probably the like path
on the side but then obviously if you
end up like you know wanting to manage
folks there's obviously the you know the
product engineering lead and then
there's the head of engineering there's
the you know VP of engineering CTO all
the way up uh up the
uh out that ladder um while continuing
to you know be focused on product
um or the other path is like you know
you become a Pure product person and
kind of become uh managing that
um managing and managing you know the
the engineering teams kind of dwell um
and becoming that translation layer uh
between customer success sales
engineering and and actual customers
um but um yeah I think uh or a little
far away from that at the moment nah
still 15 company so uh James yeah
um no I think uh we have a pretty
similar you know set of pass right you
can uh level up like you said into kind
of a product lead role or an Engineering
Management role
um and uh yeah what's I think what's
interesting at Valley or unique is like
the fact we have so many of these uh
kind of games that are like you know
fully staffed teams
um you can actually move around a lot
like if you come in at volley as a
product engineer
um and you're working on Jeopardy maybe
that'll maybe it'll work on that for a
year and say hey I really like this song
quiz stuff it sounds like you're doing
really cool stuff over there like we
have a very
um kind of fluid org in the way that our
product Engineers can move between our
games so
um I think that's really unique and
something people really value about
volley when they get here is like you
know they can uh they can learn the
stack they can ship some awesome stuff
on one game and then you know request
kind of check out another game um a year
later two years later whatever it is
um and they're bringing all the
knowledge from their their game into the
other game and kind of that helps the
business
um and I think because of the way we've
structured the architecture where all
the games are running on the same
internal engine
um you know that's cross-platform it's
uh it's a super quick learning curve to
like get up to speed on the other on the
new game that you're working on so uh
and maybe it'll be like a brand new game
that we're launching you know and we're
trying to like staff up that team so
um there's a lot of really cool just
initiatives to work on
um you know on all the on all the teams
but I think like the ability to like
kind of chart your own course is pretty
unique at volume and really valuable to
people leveling up in their careers
really fast
what is your favorite story from your
company that is related to someone who
works in product engineering
can be technical can be non-technical
well one thing I can I think that is a
good story is just like you know don't
be don't be afraid of like uh uh don't
don't think too far ahead I think
because if you if this sounds
interesting you know like about being a
product engineer and uh you know working
at a small startup I know I know I'm
sure a lot of people here aren't are not
not used to working at startups or you
know mostly worked at larger companies
and that can be itself challenging or
intimidating but like
um you know what's amazing about these
smaller companies and working in these
customer facing roles is that you learn
so many critical skills that apply
no matter where what happens in your
career
um and you can you can level up really
quickly in a startup and that's really
valuable for your career and just the
story I was going to say is like you
know why combinator has work at a
startup
um where you can apply to work at
companies like Illumina and volley but
you can also there's there's even like
work at a startup intern programs and
we've hired people right out of Masters
uh programs like they're they were an
intern for you know three months and now
they're managing you know a team of 12
so uh you know a few years later so you
can you can level up really quickly
um you know and and also you know from
from my perspective it's I love the the
this work at a startup program exists
because uh we get amazing applicants
through that
um that have gone on to do incredible
things at volley
I would I would you know uh second that
uh uh what James just said like I think
it's super super true like you know by
by reaching out uh or just you know
putting in an application or just
shooting an email like doesn't mean you
have a binding commitment to join that
company just like kind of you know uh
come chat with us uh uh it's our job to
kind of show you the show you that it's
possible um in the end of the day um but
I would say the one thing that that sort
of strikes me is like you know uh we
were like a two-person company for a
long time
um and that was because like we were
just kind of iterating that we kind of
really found product Market fit um so
close to like you know 12 18 months uh
but the first person we actually hired
was this like person like you know he
was like 19 uh kind of just like I was
hacking around right
um never talked to a customer before but
just kind of like like building things
and and right now he kind of
um obviously a little older but but but
sort of um you know very much is like
um
uh you know every day uh the first thing
he does uh on our daily kind of slack is
like here's what like uh here's like the
crazy insights I learned from like
customers
um like every week so like every
conversation he has kind of summarizes
the things about it and then like kind
of shares that with the with the
engineering work
um and like that kind of shift that
mentality from like not knowing how to
like and this person was not like a
first uh first language like uh English
speaker either and so it was like kind
of like for him it was like a
combination of all of those things to
come in and and
um you know uh get himself up to speed
then also like make sure uh he brought
everybody along for that same customer
Journey um which I think was quite
beautiful so
um yeah
Amazing Stories thank you both again for
joining us and sharing more about what
product engineering is at your companies
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