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Arthur Smith, Product Engineer

Arthurficial

The Lead · Product Engineering · Research

I ship SaaS features end-to-end — and then I check whether anyone uses them.

Full-stack product engineer, eight years in. I live in PostHog daily, build across React, TypeScript, Django, and infrastructure, and run a Measure → Understand → Experiment → Decide loop on every product I touch.

§ Abstract

Most product problems aren’t engineering problems — they’re measurement problems. The reason a team can’t decide what to build next is usually that no one has yet looked carefully at what users already do with what’s there. My practice is to close that loop: instrument before launch, watch in real time, and let the evidence kill the wrong ideas fast enough to matter.

I’ve used this loop to find that a new list view nobody used was cover for a search bar in a sidebar that drove half of all portal traffic; to catch a launch-morning confusion event and ship a fix the same day; and to make test coverage a team practice, not a hero act — <1% → 16% in eight weeks, most of which I did not personally write.

§ 01 · The Practice

What I actually do day-to-day

i.DISCOVERY

Watch users before arguing about features.

PostHog session replay, product analytics, user interviews, and small-N research studies. The job is to show up with evidence, not opinions.

1,400+ replays · 52% search usage uncovered
ii.ENGINEERING

Ship the thing. Then ship the fix.

React, TypeScript, Next.js, Django, Turborepo, monolith → monorepo extractions. Recently took a new frontend repo from empty to production in two weeks.

0 → prod in 14 days · Django monolith split
iii.EXPERIMENTATION

Let the data retire the hypothesis.

Feature flags, A/B testing, funnel instrumentation, and the discipline to kill the prettier idea when the data disagrees with it. Measure → Understand → Experiment → Decide.

2 hypotheses killed, 1 real product found
§ 02 · Selected Work

Three projects. Click for the long version.

Full index →
2024
MyBaseGuide
Full-Time Work
Military base resource platform modernized from WordPress to Next.js in one month, preserving SEO and serving military families.
Next.js · Sanity.io · SEO · Content Migration
2025
Observare.ai
Side Project
AI-powered observability platform. A venture that provided invaluable lessons in product-market fit.
AI/ML · SaaS · Startup
2024
The Charcuterist
Client Work
Website and ordering platform for a Nashville-based artisan charcuterie business, featuring online ordering and event catering.
Next.js · Toast Integration · E-commerce
§ 03 · Writing

Recent essays & case studies

All writing →
© 2026 Arthur Smith. All rights reserved.Vol. III · No. 04 · Nashville