Episode 266: Building for Builders

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Apr 8, 2026

Nan Yu, Head of Product at Linear who builds developer tooling and product experience. He talks about reducing admin burden with faster, more direct tools. He shows how anchoring requests in real moments uncovers real problems. He explains design fixes like flexible date granularity that stop notification spam.

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ADVICE

Design For Speed And Directness

Prioritize speed and directness so users reach their goal with minimal screens and instant responses.
Nan Yu emphasizes immediate UI responsiveness and writing tasks plainly to avoid indirect user journeys that waste developer time.

INSIGHT

Bad Tooling Creates PM Admin Work

Clunky engineering tools shove administrative burden onto PMs because engineers avoid tools that slow them down.
Nan Yu points out that when engineers skip tools like Jira, PMs inherit data entry and wrangling work by default.

ADVICE

Ask For The Last Time The Problem Happened

Always anchor feature requests to a specific recent moment and ask what actually happened in that instance.
Nan Yu uses the 'last time this happened' question to reveal that notifications weren't the root issue with changing dates.

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What does it take to keep product teams focused on meaningful work? In this compilation episode, Melissa Perri brings together three product leaders to explore how to cut through overhead, dig into real problems, and resist the pull of shiny technology.

Nan Yu, Head of Product at Linear, shares how clunky tools burden PMs with admin work and how his team uncovers real problems behind feature requests. Andrew Davidson, SVP of Product at MongoDB, explains what makes developers a uniquely demanding audience to build for.

Jody Bailey, CPTO at Stack Overflow, reflects on what went wrong when companies rushed to ship AI without solving real user problems. Together, these leaders show that great product work starts with understanding real people in real moments.

You'll hear us talk about:

Reducing PM administrative overhead

Nan Yu explains how poorly designed tools push admin work onto PMs. When engineering tools are too clunky, developers disengage and PMs end up doing data entry instead of talking to customers. Speed and directness in tooling keep teams focused on real value.

Uncovering real problems behind feature requests

Nan shares Linear's approach: anchor every request in a specific moment. His team asks customers when they last felt the need for a feature and what actually happened. This often reveals that the real problem differs from the original ask.

Staying problem-focused in the rush to adopt AI

Jody Bailey describes the rush companies felt when generative AI emerged and the mistake of shipping AI solutions before identifying real problems. He shares how Stack Overflow is refocusing on core strengths and expanding who it serves.

Episode resources:

Try Granola today: http://granola.ai/productinstitute

Check our courses: https://productinstitute.com/

Episode 233: How Linear Builds Tools Developers Actually Want with Nan Yu

https://www.produxlabs.com/product-thinking-blog/episode-233-linear-ai-nan-yu

Episode 209: From Databases to Developer Platforms: The MongoDB Story with Andrew Davidson

https://www.produxlabs.com/product-thinking-blog/episode-209-andrew-davidson-databases-platforms

Episode 239: Navigating the AI Shift at Stack Overflow with Jody Bailey

https://www.produxlabs.com/product-thinking-blog/episode-239-stack-overflow-ai

Jody Bailey on LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jodybailey/

Nan Yu on LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/thenanyu/

Andrew Davidson on LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewad/