Lenny's Reads

Contrary to what the headlines might be telling you, PM job openings are at their highest point in over three years, AI roles are hockey-sticking, and tech headcount is growing. Today’s episode is our fourth biannual update on the tech job market (the most optimistic yet) and breaks down seven key trends shaping the job landscape right now.
In this episode, you'll learn:
• Why PMs have reason to be optimistic
• How the influx of new AI roles is shaping the industry
• The unexpected sign of tech growth
• What current job openings look like for design and software engineering roles
• Surprising trends across remote job opportunities

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References:
• AI Practice Copilot for PM Interviews: https://www.benerez.com/copilot/lenny
• Analytical thinking interviews guide: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/analytical-thinking-interviews
• Google Career Dreamer: https://grow.google/career-dreamer/home/
• How to pass any first-round interview: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-to-pass-any-first-round-interview
• How to use AI for your job interview: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-to-use-ai-in-your-next-job-interview
• The definitive guide to mastering product sense interviews: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-definitive-guide-to-mastering
• TrueUp: https://www.trueup.io/

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Read the newsletter:https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/191595250?r=1o9eyi

Subscribe to Lenny’s Newsletter:https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe

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Subscribe:
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@lennysreads
• Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lennys-reads/id1810314693
• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0IIunA06qMtrcQLfypTooj
• Substack: https://lennysreads.com/

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Follow Lenny:
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/lennysan
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/
• Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@lennyspodcast

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About:
Welcome to Lenny's Reads, where every week you’ll find a fresh audio version of my newsletter about building product, driving growth, and accelerating your career, read to you by the soothing voice of Lennybot.


To hear more, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com

When Lenny released his full podcast transcript archive, Ben Shih a non-technical designer at Miro — built LennyRPG: a Pokémon-style RPG where you battle podcast guests with product trivia. In this episode, Ben walks through the exact six-step workflow he used to go from sketch to shipped game, including the tools, prompts, and decisions at every stage, along with the broader lessons he learned along the way.
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In this episode, you'll learn:
• How to have AI interview you instead of writing the PRD yourself
• When to pivot your framework, rather than force the wrong tool
• How to systematically process 300+ transcripts into game data
• Three core lessons Ben learned from building LennyRPG
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References
Ben Shih: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hbshih/
Brian Balfour: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bbalfour/
Claude Code Awesome Skills marketplace: https://github.com/ComposioHQ/awesome-claude-skills
LennysData.com: https://lennysdata.com/
LennyRPG: https://www.lennyrpg.fun/
Lenny's Product Pass: https://www.lennysproductpass.com/
OpenGameArt.org: https://opengameart.org/
Phaser 3: https://phaser.io/
RPG-JS: https://github.com/RSamaium/RPG-JS
Supabase: https://supabase.com/
Wispr Flow: https://wisprflow.com/
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Read the newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-i-built-lennyrpg
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Subscribe to Lenny's Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe
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Subscribe
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@lennysreads
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lennys-reads/id1810314693
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0IIunA06qMtrcQLfypTooj
Substack: https://lennysreads.com/
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Follow Lenny
Twitter: https://twitter.com/lennysan
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/
Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@lennyspodcast
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About
Welcome to Lenny's Reads, where every week you'll find a fresh audio version of my newsletter about building product, driving growth, and accelerating your career, read to you by the soothing voice of Lennybot.


To hear more, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com

It's never been easier to launch products, which means the biggest challenge product teams are facing is quickly becoming distribution. April Dunford, the world's leading expert on B2B positioning and author of Obviously Awesome, has spent 10 years working with more than 300 companies to help them stand out. In this episode, she goes beyond the basics to share tactics for overcoming four of the trickiest positioning roadblocks teams face.

In this episode, you'll learn:
• The four roadblocks every team faces when making positioning decisions
• Why cross-functional teams almost always disagree on who they compete with
• How to break the cycle of product pessimism
• Why the "So what?" test is critical for defining your differentiated value
• How to use your GTM strategy to drive positioning decisions

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References:
• April Dunford: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aprildunford/
• April Dunford's guest post on positioning: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/positioning
• April Dunford on Lenny's Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdjlCLb9Hl8
• Salesforce: https://www.salesforce.com/
• Lenny's Product Pass: https://www.lennysproductpass.com/

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Read the full newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/a-guide-to-advanced-b2b-positioning

Subscribe to Lenny's Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe

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Subscribe:
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@lennysreads
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lennys-reads/id1810314693
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0IIunA06qMtrcQLfypTooj
Substack: https://lennysreads.com/

Follow Lenny:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/lennysan
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/
Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@lennyspodcast

—

Welcome to Lenny's Reads, where every week you'll find a fresh audio version of my newsletter about building product, driving growth, and accelerating your career, read to you by the soothing voice of Lennybot.


To hear more, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com

When their team underperforms, most managers jump straight to blaming people. Molly Graham—who's worked alongside Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg, and Chamath Palihapitiya—explains how that's one of the biggest leadership traps there is. In this episode, she shares the Waterline Model: a diagnostic model to help uncover the real source of team problems, before touching an org chart.

In this episode, you'll learn:
• Why blaming people for structural problems is one of the biggest leadership mistakes
• The four layers of the Waterline Model, and why that order matters
• Why you should always "snorkel before you scuba"
• How self-preservation can be a rational response to a faulty environment
• How to make clean, decisive calls when you finally reach the individual layer

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References:
• "Give Away Your Legos": https://review.firstround.com/give-away-your-legos-and-other-commandments-for-scaling-startups/
• Glue Club: https://glueclub.com/
• Molly Graham: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mograham/
• Molly Graham on Lenny's podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twzLDx9iers
• Lenny's Product Pass: https://www.lennysproductpass.com/

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Read the full newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-to-debug-a-team-that-isnt-working

Subscribe to Lenny's Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe

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Subscribe:
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@lennysreads
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lennys-reads/id1810314693
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0IIunA06qMtrcQLfypTooj
Substack: https://lennysreads.com/

Follow Lenny:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/lennysan
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/
Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@lennyspodcast

—

Welcome to Lenny's Reads, where every week you'll find a fresh audio version of my newsletter about building product, driving growth, and accelerating your career, read to you by the soothing voice of Lennybot.


To hear more, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com

What if you could get line-by-line feedback on every interview answer you gave, predict questions before you walk in, and surface stories you didn't know you had? Noam Segal, Lenny's Community Research Lead, interviewed over 30 tech professionals about how they use AI throughout the interview process, and used the findings to build a free Claude Code-based interview coach. His coach encodes every successful interview technique he uncovered (and then some), making it an invaluable tool you can plug into your job search today.

In this episode, you'll learn:
· Why interview prep is broken (and why there's no usable feedback loop)
· How the most successful candidates built AI systems to close the gap
· What the free AI Interview Coach does and how to set it up
· How to stop sounding like every other candidate who prepped with AI
· The action checklist for before, during, and after every interview

References:
· Claude: https://claude.ai/
· Granola: https://granola.ai/
· Claude Code Interview Coach (Github link): https://github.com/noamseg/interview-coach-skill
· Lenny's Product Pass: https://lennysproductpass.com/
· Noam Segal: https://www.linkedin.com/in/noamsegal
· PM Interview Copilot: https://www.benerez.com/copilot
· Product sense guide: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-definitive-guide-to-mastering

Read the newsletter
https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-to-use-ai-in-your-next-job-interview

Subscribe to Lenny's Newsletter
https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe

Subscribe
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@lennysreads
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lennys-reads/id1810314693
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0IIunA06qMtrcQLfypTooj
Substack: https://lennysreads.com/

Follow Lenny
Twitter: https://twitter.com/lennysan
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/
Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@lennyspodcast

About
Welcome to Lenny's Reads, where every week you'll find a fresh audio version of my newsletter about building product, driving growth, and accelerating your career, read to you by the soothing voice of Lennybot.


To hear more, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com