Dayton Kelly

designing agentic products @meta

[Dayton Kelly @dayton_dk]

@rajatsuri Sign me up!

[Boris Cherny @bcherny]

As engineering, product, design, DS, etc. melt into a new kind of role, I was reflecting on what roles might look like in the future. For example, when I look at the Claude Code team I see what I think is five archetypes:

1. Prototyper: comes up with brand new ideas; churns out many ideas, most of which don't ship
2. Builder: quickly turns a prototype/idea into production-grade product/infra
3. Sweeper: cleans up the UI, simplifies the code and system, unships, optimizes performance
4. Grower: takes a product that has been built and iterates on it to improve Product-Market Fit
5. Maintainer: owns a mature system to make it secure, reliable, fast, and efficient as it scales

Many people span across 2 roles, and sometimes 3 roles. I also notice that these roles are not really tied to job function -- eg. across Anthropic, some designers match category 1, some 2, some 3; same for engineers, PM, DS.

A healthy team needs a mix of these, depending on the product:

- A product that is new and pre-PMF needs people that are strong at 1+2+3
- A product that is growing and has found PMF needs 2+3+4 and some 5
- A product that has strong PMF needs 3+4+5 and some 2

Maybe product roles of the future will look more like this, and less like the domain-specific roles of today?

[Dayton Kelly @dayton_dk]

@benblumenrose @karrisaarinen @Shopify @linear @SierraPlatform @NotionHQ @framer @stripe How can meta get involved?

[Dayton Kelly @dayton_dk]

@timwangyc It’s the Tim Grover book for me

[Dayton Kelly @dayton_dk]

@emilyreadey Haters are just wired different fr

[Dayton Kelly @dayton_dk]

@CatOrman1 @joinwarp @ayushswrites @reallygabriella @sofi_a Send the deets 🫨

[Dayton Kelly @dayton_dk]

@swfl_babe @PokeysaurusRex @megmccainsfupa @TaylorLorenz @mattyglesias No it’s obvious a joke lol

[Dayton Kelly @dayton_dk]

Haha remember google bard? It’s like “remember the commodore 64?”

[Dayton Kelly @dayton_dk]

Random life event #.1:
hearing human nature playing at a mcdonald’s in san jose while I wait for my small sprite, and while my dominos pizza is being prepared across the street. a lady is crying on the shoulder of her husband. a man in his 70’s is frustrated by the fact that he can’t just order his food at the counter anymore and has to use the self-order kiosk. wow like i was just thirsty

[Dayton Kelly @dayton_dk]

@emilyreadey LMAO

[Dayton Kelly @dayton_dk]

@noahsolomon Same happened to me bro 😭

[Dayton Kelly @dayton_dk]

No way I’m the only person that’s been listening to the new tame impala on repeat all day literally

[Dayton Kelly @dayton_dk]

I was today years old when I realized most of drakes honestly nevermind album was jersey club and not house music

[Dayton Kelly @dayton_dk]

@mattdeitke UW dropouts >>>

[Dayton Kelly @dayton_dk]

@hawaalidrammeh That’s the only appropriate reaction 🤣

[Dayton Kelly @dayton_dk]

Convinced that if I’m in a flow state I can conquer the world

[Dayton Kelly @dayton_dk]

@hawaalidrammeh It’s bc they know you’ll be a 10x designer

[Dayton Kelly @dayton_dk]

@davidhoang Checkout https://t.co/XAWUoiYl5F . Different concept than what you’re working on but I think it might spark some more ideas for you

[Dayton Kelly @dayton_dk]

@emilyreadey Which software u using

[Dayton Kelly @dayton_dk]

@joulee Sounds like someone is looking for cracked designers