Martin Anvelt

Companies have traditionally structured Product and Engineering collaboration in one of two ways:

• Separate leadership: A VP of Product and a VP of Engineering, each leading their own teams with different goals and metrics—often resulting in misalignment
• Unified leadership: A single VP of Product Engineering overseeing both functions, but with the risk of bias depending on their background—either Product running Engineering or vice versa

We took a different path. Instead of choosing one extreme, we created a third way: two VPs, one organization, shared goals, collaborative balance and shared leadership. This model fosters healthy tension, deep collaboration, and a truly unified approach to building great products.

In this session, we’ll share why we took this approach, the risks we embraced, the steps we followed, and what we’ve learned after three years of making it work.