# Collaborate With Engineering

> Structure effective collaboration patterns between product and engineering for discovery, estimation, and trade-off decisions. Use this skill when product-engineering collaboration is creating friction or misalignment.

- Skill: `alexe-ev/collaborate-with-engineering` (Agent Skill, multi-file: 5 files)
- Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add alexe-ev/collaborate-with-engineering`
- Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/alexe-ev/collaborate-with-engineering/raw
- Safety review: pending
- Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex
- Category: Product & Planning
- Author: alexe-ev (https://skillmd.com/u/alexe-ev)
- Updated: 2026-09-17
- Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/alexe-ev/collaborate-with-engineering

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# Collaborate with Engineering

## Purpose
Help product teams design effective collaboration practices with engineering across discovery, scoping, estimation, and trade-off decision-making.

## Skill type
Conceptual skill

## Use this skill when
- Product and engineering are misaligned on what to build or why
- Estimation is unreliable or not happening at the right time
- Engineers feel disconnected from user and product context
- Product managers aren't effectively involving engineering in discovery

## Do not use this skill when
- The goal is delivery planning (use plan-delivery-collaboration)
- The goal is requirements writing (use write-requirements-prd)

## Required inputs
- Current state of product-engineering collaboration (pain points or patterns)
- Team structure

## Optional inputs
- Development methodology (agile, shape up, kanban)
- Known friction points
- Current involvement of engineering in discovery

## Upstream context
Works best when:
- Operating cadence and process are defined
- Communication norms exist

## Downstream handoff
Output can feed:
- plan-delivery-collaboration
- prioritize-architecture-aware

## Instructions
1. Assess current product-engineering collaboration health.
2. Identify specific collaboration failure modes (too late, too little context, estimation issues).
3. Design involvement patterns for each phase: discovery, scoping, design, delivery.
4. Define the PM-engineering interface: who decides what, when engineering is consulted.
5. Design estimation and trade-off decision processes.
6. Create a feedback loop for engineering to raise product concerns.

## Output
Provide:
- Collaboration health assessment
- Failure modes identified
- Involvement design per phase (discovery → scoping → design → delivery)
- PM-engineering decision interface
- Estimation process
- Trade-off decision process
- Engineering-to-product feedback loop design

## Risks / caveats
- Engineering involvement in discovery pays dividends — don't gate it to delivery
- Estimation is collaborative, not a waterfall handoff
- Engineers who don't understand user problems build technically correct wrong things