Last month, our engineering planning meeting turned into a heated debate. The product team had marked three different initiatives as P0 priorities, each requiring major engineering effort. Our engineering lead, clearly frustrated, pointed out:
“If everything is P0, then nothing is P0.”
Silence. The tension in the room was palpable. Both sides had strong, valid arguments—but no clear resolution.
This story is fictitious but I'm sure you can relate to it. Tech companies struggle with this conflict every day. Despite all the prioritization frameworks, alignment meetings, and strategy documents, engineering and product teams often find themselves locked in a tug-of-war over priorities.
The usual advice? Use a better framework. Improve communication. Add more process. But these fixes rarely work because they don’t address the root cause.
In this post, we'll break down why engineering and product teams naturally clash, why common solutions fail, and what actually works to create alignment that lasts.
Why Engineering and Product Teams Clash (And Why It’s Not Just Poor Communication)
1. They Think About Priorities Differently
At the core of these conflicts is a simple truth: engineering and product teams think about work differently.
- Engineers focus on system stability, technical debt, and long-term maintainability. Their risk is building something fragile or unsustainable.
- Product managers focus on market timing, user needs, and competitive pressures. Their risk is missing an opportunity or losing ground to competitors.
Neither perspective is wrong. But when priorities are set without recognizing these differences, misalignment is inevitable.
2. Your Org Structure Might Be Making Things Worse
Many companies unintentionally bake misalignment into their org structure.
- Product teams are measured on user adoption and feature delivery.
- Engineering teams are measured on reliability, scalability, and technical excellence.

How to Fix It: Stop Fighting Over Resources, Start Aligning on Value
1. Shift the Mindset: Prioritization Isn’t a Zero-Sum Game
Most teams approach prioritization as a fight over engineering resources—which creates a win/lose dynamic. The better approach? Frame it as a shared effort to maximize value.
Instead of debating whether to prioritize a feature or technical debt, look for solutions that create value on both sides.
Example: Instead of choosing between "shipping a new feature" and "reducing tech debt," could you improve system performance in a way that also enhances the user experience?
The best teams find creative ways to make trade-offs visible and collaborative rather than competitive.
2. The Role of Middle Managers: Leverage then for Alignment
One of the most underrated factors in alignment is engineering managers and product managers. These leaders act as translators between their teams, helping bridge the gap before conflicts escalate.
When middle managers are aligned, they can:
✅ Set the stage for productive conversations
✅ Translate business goals into technical priorities (and vice versa)
✅ Ensure discussions focus on solutions, not blame

What Actually Works: 3 Solutions That Drive Team Alignment
The best tech companies don’t rely on meetings to fix alignment issues—they design their organizations to prevent them in the first place.
1. Create Teams That Own Both Product & Technical Outcomes
Companies like Stripe and Spotify have moved toward small, cross-functional teams with:
✅ Shared goals across engineering and product
✅ High autonomy to make decisions
✅ Joint accountability for outcomes
At different company stages, this looks different:
- Startups: Engineers and PMs work side by side, continuously aligning.
- Scale-ups: "Pods" or "squads" maintain close collaboration while adding structure.
- Enterprises: Interfaces between teams must be designed carefully to avoid silos.
The key is ensuring technical health isn’t “just an engineering problem” and business impact isn’t “just a product problem.”
2. Make Prioritization Trade-Offs Visible
Many prioritization conflicts come from hidden trade-offs. The fix?
✅ Use shared planning tools that make both technical and product priorities visible.
✅ Run joint planning sessions (not separate roadmaps).
✅ Review priorities together regularly, not just during annual planning.When teams see the bigger picture together, they make better collective decisions.
3. Align Incentives, Not Just Processes
If engineering is measured on uptime and product is measured on user growth, alignment will always be a struggle.The best teams ensure both sides care about:
✅ Technical health (e.g., reliability, scalability, maintainability)
✅ User impact (e.g., adoption, retention, engagement)For example, at some companies, engineering teams own product metrics like customer retention—ensuring they’re not just incentivized to ship clean code, but also to support business success.
How Product & Engineering Teams Can Use Rally for Collaboration
Visualize team capacity, assign tasks, estimate and have conversations around your Jira work items.
How to Start: Small Steps That Make a Big Difference
You don’t need a massive reorg to improve alignment. Start small:
- Make work visible. Use shared tools so product and engineering see the same data.
- Bridge the gap with hybrid roles. Consider “technical PMs” or “product engineers” to connect both worlds.
- Run joint retrospectives. Instead of separate engineering and product retros, combine them to build shared understanding.
🚨 Avoid common pitfalls:
❌ Don’t force consensus—some friction is healthy.
❌ Don’t add process without clear value.
❌ Don’t aim for perfect alignment—aim for better decision-making.
Scaling This Approach As You Grow
As your company scales:
✅ Document and share success patterns. If something works, make it repeatable.
✅ Be flexible. Different teams may need different approaches.
✅ Keep the core principles, adapt the implementation. The goal is alignment, not uniformity.
Final Thoughts: The Best Teams Align Naturally
The future of great software development isn’t better processes—it’s better environments where engineering and product teams align naturally.
For leaders, the job isn’t to force alignment but to design systems that encourage it. When teams share goals, understand each other’s constraints, and have the right structures in place, alignment stops being a constant struggle—and starts being the default.
The companies that get this right will move faster, build better products, and create a more satisfying workplace for everyone.
The question isn’t whether to improve alignment.
It’s how to do it in a way that sticks