1:1 Design Review for PMs: Learn the Questions to Ask Engineers
Vineeta Sreekumar
Engineer | Ex-Amazon TPM | Author
What you'll learn
Ever been in an engineering design review where you followed some of the discussion but weren't sure what questions to ask?
In this 60-minute one-on-one session, we'll break down how a real-world system works. You can choose from suggested topics like payments, streaming, ticket booking, or propose a system of your own.
We'll focus on a few important design decisions, explore what could go wrong, and practice asking questions that connect technical choices to customer experience and business impact.
The goal isn't to turn you into an engineer. It's to help you contribute meaningfully to technical discussions.
What you'll get
60-minute private session: Walk through a system architecture with me.
Prepared architecture diagram: Understand how the components work together.
Design-review questions: Learn what to ask engineers and why those questions matter.
One-page recap: Receive key takeaways and questions you can reuse, within 24 hours.
How the session works
Choose your system. Pick from payments, streaming, ticket booking, search, or notifications, or suggest a system you'd like to explore. You'll share your topic and questions when scheduling your session.
Walk through the architecture*. We'll trace how a request moves through the system and identify important components.
Explore risks and trade-offs. What happens when a dependency fails? What changes when traffic increases? How do technical decisions affect customers and cost?
Practice asking questions. Learn how to bring up concerns in a real engineering discussion.
*We'll use simplified architectures based on publicly available information and common industry design patterns, rather than the actual internal designs of these companies.
Who this is for
This session is for product managers, program managers, and aspiring technical program managers who:
Work with engineers but don't have a strong technical background
Want to understand architecture diagrams and design decisions
Struggle to identify what questions to ask in design reviews
Want to connect technical risks to customer and business impact
No coding required. Best suited for professionals who work with software engineers and have some familiarity with technical discussions.
Want to go deeper?
This session focuses on one system. If you want to build broader technical fluency across APIs, system architecture, design reviews, and technical trade-offs, explore my 6-week PM to TPM course.