Great Builders Feel Product Pain Like Parents
by Tomer Cohen on December 4, 2025
Tomer Cohen believes the future of product development requires a fundamental reimagining of how we build, driven by the accelerating pace of change in the world. By 2030, the skills required for most jobs will change by 70%, and many of today's fastest-growing jobs didn't exist a year ago. This rapid evolution demands a new approach to building products.
The traditional product development process has become unnecessarily complex over time. What started as a simple flow—research a problem, spec it out, design it, code it, launch it, iterate—has expanded into countless sub-steps with specialized roles handling each piece. This organizational complexity slows teams down precisely when they need to move faster.
Cohen's solution is what he calls the "full stack builder model," which empowers individuals to take ideas to market regardless of their role in the stack. Rather than siloed specialization, this approach emphasizes fluid interaction between humans and machines, with builders developing experiences end-to-end by combining skills across traditionally distinct domains.
The model focuses on letting humans excel at what they do best: vision, empathy, communication, creativity, and most importantly, judgment. Everything else should be automated. Cohen explains: "Judgment is making high quality decisions in complex, ambiguous situations. Everything else I'm working really hard to automate."
This approach requires three key components: platform changes (rearchitecting systems so AI can reason over them), tools and agents (specialized AI assistants for different functions), and cultural transformation. While the first two are prerequisites, the cultural piece is where most organizations struggle. Simply providing tools isn't enough—you need incentives, motivation, examples, and change management to drive adoption.
Interestingly, top performers tend to embrace these tools most enthusiastically. As Cohen notes, "Top talent has this tendency of continuously trying to get better at their craft and this innate need to be at the cutting edge of how you build." The model doesn't require everyone to become a full stack builder, but it does mean fewer specialized roles are needed.
For leaders implementing similar approaches, Cohen advises patience with the investment while maintaining impatience about the goal. Start with small teams but ensure visibility across the organization. Most importantly, don't wait for formal reorganization—give people permission to start building differently now.
The full stack builder approach represents a return to craftsmanship, making organizations more nimble, adaptive and resilient—better equipped to match the pace of change with an appropriate pace of response. As Cohen puts it, "It's not that you have to break the model. I think the model is broken. It's just this pace of change is helping us realize it."