--- title: Building FindCoffeeMate Taught Me More About Product... description: A developer reflects on lessons learned while building FindCoffeeMate, a side project that shifted their mindset from pure code execution to product thinking.... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/building-findcoffeemate-taught-me-more-about-product-engineering-than-any-course-ysu5ilrew twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Building FindCoffeeMate Taught Me More About Product Engineering Than Any Course | daily.dev og:description: A developer reflects on lessons learned while building FindCoffeeMate, a side project that shifted their mindset from pure code execution to product thinking.... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/building-findcoffeemate-taught-me-more-about-product-engineering-than-any-course-ysu5ilrew og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/YSU5iLrEW.png og:image:alt: Building FindCoffeeMate Taught Me More About Product Engineering Than Any Course og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Building FindCoffeeMate Taught Me More About Product Engineering Than Any Course **[Medium](https://daily.dev/sources/medium_js)** · 3 min read · 1 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A developer reflects on lessons learned while building FindCoffeeMate, a side project that shifted their mindset from pure code execution to product thinking. Key insights include questioning whether features solve real problems before building them, designing APIs that encapsulate business logic (like a connectionState field that simplifies frontend rendering), and asking three questions before writing any code: who is it for, what problem does it solve, and how will success be measured. The post argues that great engineers balance technical decisions with user and business goals. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Building a Product Mindset: How We Get Engineers Closer to Users](https://daily.dev/posts/building-a-product-mindset-how-we-get-engineers-closer-to-users-maaeocxyx) · monday Engineering · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [The 7 Production Mistakes That Made Me a Better Android Engineer](https://daily.dev/posts/the-7-production-mistakes-that-made-me-a-better-android-engineer-uancp7li8) · Medium · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [You're Not Paid to Write Code](https://daily.dev/posts/you-re-not-paid-to-write-code-v90betmzy) · Tech World With Milan · 288 upvotes · 26 comments - [How We Hire Engineers When AI Writes Our Code](https://daily.dev/posts/how-we-hire-engineers-when-ai-writes-our-code-cihmh6jms) · Tech Lead Digest · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#architecture](https://daily.dev/tags/architecture) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/building-findcoffeemate-taught-me-more-about-product-engineering-than-any-course-ysu5ilrew) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Building FindCoffeeMate Taught Me More About Product Engineering Than Any Course","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/building-findcoffeemate-taught-me-more-about-product-engineering-than-any-course-ysu5ilrew","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/building-findcoffeemate-taught-me-more-about-product-engineering-than-any-course-ysu5ilrew"},"datePublished":"2026-07-14T07:30:13.881Z","dateModified":"2026-09-13T19:02:29.589Z","description":"A developer reflects on lessons learned while building FindCoffeeMate, a side project that shifted their mindset from pure code execution to product thinking....","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/d6ab0a9a223ee01bc82d647f54feb2d2?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/d6ab0a9a223ee01bc82d647f54feb2d2?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Medium","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Medium","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/t_logo,f_auto/v1/logos/medium","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/medium_js"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/building-findcoffeemate-taught-me-more-about-product-engineering-than-any-course-ysu5ilrew","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":1},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"architecture","timeRequired":"PT3M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Medium","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/medium_js"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Building FindCoffeeMate Taught Me More About Product Engineering Than Any Course"}]} ```