Christian Montoya is a prolific product builder with experience ranging from NFT collections and games to popular apps like Draw Something and MetaMask Snaps. In this interview, we explore the benefits of being a generalist in product development and the joy of creating products that people love.
The main insight I took from our interview is that it’s okay to be a generalist. Maybe even beneficial.
I’ve been struggling with this question for the past 3-4 years of my career. Christian makes a good point that as a product manager it makes sense to be technical. It allows you to see the whole picture. It allows you to translate things to the business side and unblock the engineering side when needed.
Our discussion made me think that skill stacking properly can really pay off.
A good example that comes to my mind is a design engineer (UI/UX design + frontend code). Companies like TailwindCSS would pay a literal $275,000 per year for a good design engineer.
I’ve first seen this when I tried my hand at web3 auditing a year and a half ago. It’s kind of depressing, to me, that I start working on something and when I’m done there’s nothing new in the world.
Building something on the other hand, having something left behind after you’ve done your work…
It’s beautiful. It makes you proud.
And when you see people using it… And they like it? Or even love it? It just feels good.
There is great beauty in building products.
Give this one a shot. I think you’ll enjoy it.
P.S.: I couldn’t help myself and had to add this gif. You’ll figure out why in the interview.
