Maven

How to Increase Your Technical Depth

Stripe

Notion

First Round

Cristina Cordova

Chief Operating Officer at Linear. Prev. Stripe, Notion, First Round.

Deeply understand a new product through the eyes of a customer.

Understand what matters to a technical stakeholder.

Learn to speak the same language as your technical counterparts.

You sat through another meeting today feeling totally lost as the devs threw around terms like “rate limits” and “microservices”. Every time you have to make decisions that impact an engineer’s implementation, you feel like you’re on the back foot and struggling to keep up with the details. After you hand off a feature to engineering, you have no idea if it will be delivered the way you're expecting. You can feel confident, you just need the right plan. The reason most PMs can’t improve their technical skills is that they follow random online tutorials with no real plan or guidance. Or try to go from zero to 100 overnight by upskilling on complex topics - only to give up feeling frustrated and disappointed. That’s why this cohort is designed to help you build a foundational understanding of software applications. You won’t just memorize a bunch of terms - you’ll actually understand how software products are designed and deployed to handle millions of users. And our community will be here to give you the support, guidance, and accountability you’ll need to finally stick with it. After only 4 weeks, you’ll look back and think.. “WOW! I can’t believe I did that.”&nbsp; Now imagine if you could: ✅ Master technical concepts without getting lost in an internet maze. ✅ Stop asking engineers to dumb down concepts when talking to you. ✅ Predict risks, anticipate issues, and avoid endless back-and-forth. ✅ Improve your communication with engineers, users, and technical stakeholders&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Getting started is easy. 1️⃣ Start with my 8-day email course to start building confidence with APIs today (enroll for free below!) 2️⃣ Enroll in the 4-week cohort to build your foundations with application architecture, APIs, software development lifecycle, and system design. 3️⃣ Continue your journey with The Vault, our content library covering technical tradeoffs, generative AI, technical interview prep, and more. 🎉 Bonus: When you enroll in this course, you’ll receive $1,395 in free credits to level up your workflow with Superhuman, Linear, Sprig, Dovetail &amp; Gamma (see FAQ for details)

Does this sound familiar? 

Understand how technical skills fit into a PMs toolkit and why technical PMs get ahead faster.

Why PMs with Tech Skills Win

Start with fundamental application architecture and move to advanced topics such as containerization, microservices, and more

Application Architecture

Learn how APIs work and why they are a requirement for almost every modern software product

APIs

Get up to speed with SQL and start retrieving and analyzing data independently

Data Models

Build rapport with engineers by understanding development workflows and lifecycles.

Software Development Life Cycle

Learn how to scale applications to millions of users.

System Design + Scalability 

Course syllabus

Live Sessions

Recorded Lessons

Practice Exercises

Course schedule

Senior Product Managers.Build confidence and gain a competitive edge amongst your peers

Non-technical PMs.Overcome imposter syndrome, improve communication, and make better product decisions

MBA graduates and consultants.Seamlessly transition into product by learning critical technical skills

Who is this course for

What you’ll get out of this course

Feel more confident in your decisions by building a deeper understanding of technical tradeoffs

Build confidence

Engage engineering by using common language

Improve communication

Understand fundamentals by learning and practicing essential concepts

Grow your technical skills

Gain a competitive edge in your career by demonstrating your technical acumen

Excel in your Product career

Build confidence without getting lost in technical jargon 
🔥Featured on Lenny's Newsletter🔥 

Colin Matthews

Product Manager @ Datavant

Cohort 11 

Cohort 12

Tech leaders are remembered not just for their technical prowess, but for the lasting impact they have on their team's careers and success. This course equips both new and experienced software engineering managers with the essential skills to amplify their influence and drive team performance. Over 100 software engineers and engineering managers have already enhanced their leadership capabilities through this course. Join them and transform your approach to tech leadership. --- This interactive course will teach you how to solve 3 key problems faced by senior engineers and engineering leaders: • Identifying opportunities for growth within your team and working with your team to fill these missing gaps • Effective communication with your direct reports, peers, and upper management • Asking for and delivering constructive, actionable feedback For the duration of this course you'll receive: • 4 hours of engaging content over Zoom across two Saturdays, with interactive lessons and breakout sessions • Hands-on learning by walking through case studies and real life examples with your cohort • Templates you can immediately start using on the job • In-depth live Q&amp;A session to get immediate answers to your on-the-job questions • Recording and slides for future reference and review NEW: All current and past students will receive lifetime access to a private Discord community for tech leaders to keep the conversation going.

What makes a great engineering leader?

You'll learn how to identify growth opportunities for each team member and work one-on-one with them both on a long-term quarterly basis and during regular check-ins to ensure your team members are continuing to grow as engineers.

Developing your engineering team

You'll learn how to build influence through facing challenging conversations head-on with your engineering team, peers, and upper management.

Conflict resolution across an organization

You'll learn how to give effective feedback to your engineering team and peers to build a more effective work culture.

Giving and receiving constructive feedback

Saturday Morning

Saturday Afternoon

Choose the morning or afternoon session to fit your schedule

New and experienced engineering managers looking to build the interpersonal skills required to succeed as a leader

Technical engineering managers who want to develop their team and build influence across their company

Aspiring engineering managers looking to lay the groundwork to create an impact as an IC and future leader

Who this course is for:

After taking this course, you'll be able to:

Your success as an leader is measured by your team's execution, and to have great execution, you need a great team. We'll talk through how to identify and leverage technical and interpersonal strengths of your current team and empower your team to grow professionally.

Build and scale a high performing team

1:1s and performance reviews don't have to be stressful–my own team can back me up! I'll teach you how to keep the feedback loop active by applying my framework to conduct meaningful 1:1s and provide tactical, actionable feedback to your team on a regular cadence.

Conduct impactful 1:1s and development check-ins

Learn how to give constructive feedback from a trained therapist! I'll teach you effective communication strategies for conflict resolution within your team and building influence within your organization.

Navigate challenging conversations with peers and direct reports

Learn the 3 key skills you need to be an impactful technical leader with this interactive workshop

Kelly Vaughn

Cohort 4

Cohort 5

Learn the "Art and Science" of technical selling. AI + Cloud has changed the way enterprises consume software and services.&nbsp;This allows engineers to impact the B2B sales process in a very positive way.

Learn solution sales strategies that leverage your authenticity as an engineer.

Understand the B2B sales process

Meet your customer where they are

Researching and profiling customers effectively

Art & science of product positioning based on customer needs

Use your technical skills to engage customers and build trust

Identify risks in sales opportunities and neutralize them

Closing the deal

Tips for additional practice

Course Syllabus

4 Live Sessions over 2 Weeks

Project Work

Technical Founders who are building category-defining software products.

Technical Solution Sellers looking to speed up their time to revenue.

Software engineers in customer-facing roles who want to rev-up their careers.

Bridge the Gap Between Code and Clients.<ul><li>Gain practical insights into the world of B2B sales, tailored specifically for founders.</li><li>Understand how to articulate complex technical solutions to non-technical stakeholders.</li></ul>

Unlock customer opportunities by harnessing your technical skills

Engineers are in the best position to sell effectively. But, they lack the tools and framework to be successful. You will create your own high-velocity sales playbook that works for your technology domain.

Learn the high-velocity sales framework

Mass disruptions are also creating massive opportunities. Use the energy in the technology market in your favor.

Leverage AI and Cloud disruptions

<ul><li>Equip yourself with the sales acumen needed to successfully launch and sell your own SaaS products to businesses.</li><li>Learn to translate the value of your technical solutions into compelling propositions for potential clients.</li></ul>

Entrepreneurial edge for SaaS creators

You are selling every day to internal stakeholders. This course will arm you with strategies and mental frameworks to progress your agenda. These skills are valuable even if you continue in a developer role.

Cut through the FUD created by entrenched vendors

<ul><li>Enjoy continued access to the exclusive community for ongoing support and events.</li><li>Avail a 25% discount on the premium version of the community with over 50,000 industry experts. JoinTaro.com</li></ul>

Continuous Support Beyond the Course

Technical Selling Framework for the AI Era

Platformatory Cohort

Karthik Balachandran

Senior Director, Sales Engineering

November 2024

January 25

The challenge: most people who don't have a technical background do not understand the reasons why products like ChatGPT, Claude, or Cursor respond the way they do. Because of this, they also don't understand how to get what they want and need out of AI tools. A quick story: my sister is a physician-scientist. She has an MD-PhD. She does cutting edge scientific research and works with data on the daily. Last year, we were on a video call where she mentioned being unimpressed with ChatGPT's response to her work question. She told me what she was trying to do, and I went, "wait, AI could definitely handle this - what did you type?" I flipped the screen, pointed it at my monitor, and proceeded to have a conversation with ChatGPT that got her all the answers she needed in just a few minutes. This "capability unlock" has gone on to save her at least an hour in her work every day. DAILY. And she was mere seconds away from having given up on it, thinking AI wasn't yet good enough to get the job done. And this is when I realized, every non-technical user needs to understand not just "prompt engineering," as you've heard described elsewhere.It's more fundamental than that. It's...• The reasons and treasons of why AI does or doesn't give you a good answer• The nuances of technical limitations (safety, length, 'correct' output)• The incredible power of chain of thought &amp; reflective techniques This 3-day intensive will cover the above, and so much more, with the outcome of getting you to become fluent in talking to AI systems, including large language models (like ChatGPT/GPT-4o out of OpenAI, Claude out of Anthropic, LLaMA out of Meta) and image generation models (like Midjourney, DALL-E, and Stable Diffusion). And when I say "fluent," I mean something very specific. Just as language fluency isn't about memorizing phrases from a travel guidebook, AI fluency isn't about collecting prompts from Twitter. True fluency means understanding the deeper patterns of interaction -- knowing when to push, when to pivot, and most importantly, why. Consider this: most courses teach you what to say to AI. This course teaches you how to think about AI conversation. It's the difference between learning to order coffee in French versus understanding why French speakers structure their thoughts the way they do. What you'll get out of the 3 day intensive - Day 1Mental Models &amp; Mechanics• What AI knows versus what it can do; how AI reads, thinks, and speaks, + biases and limits• The hidden landscape of latent space, embeddings, and vectors - what does it all mean for your usage?• Differences in AI paradigms, LLM models, genAI models, and the applications that sit on top of them Day 2Conversations &amp; Debugging• Ask the unaskable: form questions that inspire LLMs to answer you; learn the DRIVE context framework• Use layered prompting and multi-turn conversations for your most advanced queries and topics• Get AI to "think out loud," giving you more data, more insights, and the ability to iterate over time Day 3Advanced Applications• Use reflective and agentic techniques + products to get AI "working for you" - soon, you'll have a team• Get multi-modal - combine models, model types, and apps to generate fast, impactful outputs• &amp; more: analysis, tools, fine-tuning, hallucinations, ethical considerations, and real world use And more• retrieval augmented generation (RAG), code use, integration + extensions, voice-based nuances• chain of thought, reflection, context windows, and other AI concepts explained• how do apps make use of LLMs, how is AI being integrated by companies across tech At the end of this 3-day intensive, you'll...• be able to transform vague ideas into incredible outputs, whether you're brainstorming, working with data and statistics, coding with AI, using it for workflow, asking it knowledge questions, utilizing it for research, adopting it as a content companion, or using it in an academic setting• troubleshoot and debug AI responses - you'll know when you've hit a real limit versus a bug or user error, unlocking the boundaries of what AI can do before anyone else -- no matter the field you're in• future-proof your skills - because you're going to have a deep understanding of how these products work, you'll remain capable of using them as the models are continuously updated and evolved, even as the rapid pace of AI development continues It's about harnessing the power of this transformative technology to amplify your own creativity, productivity, and impact on the world. Get ready to go beyond "prompt engineering" and embark on a journey to truly master the art and science of communicating with AI. Are you ready to unlock the conversation?

You're probably bad at talking to AI. I'll make it your smartest friend.

Provide a brief description for each module as a way to sell the value of what students will be learning throughout the course.

First Module

Second Module

Third Module

3 days of live classes

Can't make it to the live classes or want to watch them again later? We'll make each day's content available same-day for all students.

Access recordings forever

There will be several projects and optional group workshops to turn the content into usable muscle - attend live for instructor feedback, or access projects, examples, and templates at your own pace - including permanent access after the course ends.

Daily projects (optional)

Non-technical or semi-technical professionals (throughout knowledge work) looking to gain an upper hand in this AI moment.

Anyone who has felt the gap between AI's potential, what they hear about what it can do, and their ability to access the upside.

NOT for engineers who already use LLM copilots every day. NOT for people looking for quick prompt templates.

You'll learn about the cognitive architecture that underpins not just LLMs, but the way that products and apps are built around them. These patterns will work across AI models and will continue working as systems evolve.

Instead of AI prompt templates, learn conversational design patterns

It's hard for even the most AI-passionate people to integrate and reliably, consistency use AI products. I'll give you systems, shortcuts, and methods for making it second nature -- we'll build your AI muscle.

Instead of treating ChatGPT like a magic answer box, you'll make it a constant companion

"Why does it hallucinate here, but not there? When should I restart a conversation versus redirect it? Why does it sometimes forget what we just discussed? How does its sourcing work? When is more context good versus bad?" You'll know. And you'll know what to do next.

Instead of getting frustrated, you'll know how to iterate your way to results

You'll master the art of progressive refinement, building complex outputs and systems, and be able to leverage all of this to be top .5% in your field -- whether that's at work, with a hobby, with a side project, or with something personal.

Instead of being left behind, you'll get and stay ahead of the AI curve

Develop a foundational understanding of how AI & LLMs see, hear, and read your input, + how to use them to 10x your output speed and impact.

Lightning Lessons

How to Increase Your Technical Depth