Linear · Product sense · Mid · 45 to 60 minutes

How should Linear handle customer requests?

Linear is a software product that teams use to plan and track product and engineering work. Answer this product management case and get it graded line by line against a weighted rubric.

Product sense
Prioritization
Systems thinking
User empathy
Judgment

The situation

Linear's product leadership asks you, a PM on the core product, to recommend how the company should handle growing customer feature requests. Feedback now arrives through support conversations, sales calls, founder inboxes, community posts, and user interviews. Teams can point to passionate customer asks, but there is no shared way to capture them, connect them to product work, or tell whether several requests reflect one deeper problem. Some teammates want a simple request board so customers can ask for features directly. Others worry that if Linear starts building from requests, the roadmap will become reactive and fragmented. If Linear ignores requests, it risks missing real pain and alienating customers who feel unheard. Leadership wants a clear proposal now because the volume of feedback is rising and the current ad hoc handling does not scale. Assume engineering time is limited, and any solution should strengthen Linear's product process rather than create a separate support system. What should Linear build, if anything, and how should the team use customer feedback in product decisions?

What to produce

Write a 1 to 2 page product recommendation memo.

Your answer must

Identify the main users or internal stakeholders in the feedback process and the problem each has today.
State the product principle for how customer requests should inform, but not dictate, roadmap decisions.
Recommend an MVP, including the core workflow for capturing feedback, organizing it, and linking it to existing work.
List the most important non-goals for the first version and explain why they stay out of scope.
Define success metrics and a lightweight operating process for reviewing feedback and turning it into product decisions.

Constraints

Assume a small product and engineering team, so ongoing manual triage must stay low.
The solution cannot turn requests into automatic roadmap commitments or a public vote on features.
It should fit naturally into Linear's existing planning and issue tracking workflows, not depend on a separate complex CRM style system.

Format

Use short headings and bullets. If helpful, include a simple flow from incoming feedback to product decision.

How Linear actually played it

Linear describes why it built a feature to collect customer requests while still insisting on product judgment. The post names the feedback paradox between building only requests and ignoring them. Useful for PMs designing a feedback intake system.

Treat requests as evidence of problems, not as specs
Capture feedback in one place linked to work
Balance customer input with product vision

Built from Building what customers need, not just what they ask for by Sagan Schultz.