From QA to Product: Why I Started Writing Things Down
From QA to Product: Why I Started Writing Things Down
I’m not a writer — let’s just get that out of the way up front.
The Setup
I’ve spent my career in software. I started in QA, which means I spent years trying to break things other people built — and honestly, I was pretty good at it. Somewhere along the way I moved into product management, which means I now spend my time figuring out what to build and why before anyone writes a line of code.
That shift changed how I think about software, about teams, and about what “quality” actually means. And I kept having these moments — conversations with my team, decisions that went well (or didn’t), patterns I kept seeing — where I thought, “I should write this down.”
So here I am, writing it down.
Why Bother?
A few reasons, if I’m being honest.
First, I want to get better at articulating what I’ve learned. When you move from a technical role into product, you pick up a lot through experience that’s hard to put into words. Writing forces you to make it concrete.
Second, I think the QA-to-PM path is more common than people realize, but nobody really talks about it. If you’re a QA engineer thinking about product, or a PM who came from a testing background, I want this to be a space where that perspective gets some airtime.
Third — and this is the selfish one — I want a record. A few years from now I want to look back and see how my thinking evolved. That’s worth the discomfort of putting myself out there.
What to Expect
I’m going to keep this simple. Twice a month I’ll share something — a lesson from work, a take on how teams build software, a reflection on my career so far. Some posts will be practical (here’s a framework I use, here’s how I handle X). Others will be more personal (here’s something I got wrong, here’s what surprised me).
I’m not going to pretend I have all the answers. I’m still figuring a lot of this out. But I think there’s value in sharing the process, not just the polished takeaways.
The Takeaway
If you’ve ever thought “I’m not a writer” as a reason not to share what you know — I get it. I’m right there with you. But I’ve realized that having something worth saying matters more than saying it perfectly.
So here goes. Thanks for reading the first one.
I’ll be posting twice a month. If you’re into product management, software, or just figuring out your career as you go, stick around.