For over 35 years, I’ve had the unique privilege of being paid to be curious. To lean in, to listen closely, to gather perspectives—all in pursuit of one thing: bugs. Not just the obvious glitches, but the subtle imperfections, the things that weren’t working as intended for customers that we knew, as well as the customer that we didn’t see coming.
I was a professional customer advocate. My mission was to dissect and question the design of features on behalf of the customer, ideally before they experienced them. Think about that favorite app feature you love. Someone, somewhere, (hopefully) tested it rigorously to ensure your experience was exactly what you hoped for. And if, by some unfortunate turn, something didn’t work as expected, my job was to ensure it failed gracefully – that it didn’t cause more harm, it didn’t drive you away out of frustration, and it left you with the hope that we’d get it right if you, or enough others, reported it.
How did I do this? It started with reviewing “specs”—the detailed documentation outlining every aspect of how a feature should work (or how we envisioned it would work in our mind). Then, I’d use the feature as intended, and equally crucial, I’d push it in ways it was never meant, or intended, to be used. Honestly, someone, somewhere, will always use the feature in ways we didn’t plan or foresee. We are multi-faceted humans coming with various perspectives and expectations. From there, I engaged in a cycle of reviewing, questioning, discussing, and negotiating every detail of the feature. Much of my time was spent inhabiting the customer’s perspective, advocating for their optimal experience. It was a deeply human exercise, and even as AI takes on more testing to help businesses scale, human perspective, involvement and oversight remain essential.
Through decades of this work, my perspective on the world has been profoundly shaped. This isn’t limited to large corporations or small startups; it extends to my community and even my family. What began as a job has become an intrinsic part of who I am. Now, I perceive “bugs”, or what I like to call “opportunities for improvement”, everywhere—not only in products but also in public policies, societal systems, and even our interpersonal interactions.
I believe tech doesn’t create who we are. It simply amplifies it. When we look at the challenges facing humanity today, can we truly blame tech for this downward spiral? Or is technology simply holding up a mirror to our collective imperfections?
Perhaps that’s the wrong question entirely. The question isn’t what has tech done to us, but rather, what have we done with tech? And if the technology we’ve built, the systems we rely on, seem broken, then just like any product, we have to ask ourselves: Is it failing gracefully? Or are we, as its creators and customers, failing to ensure it does? The answer to that will determine how well tech by us truly succeeds, or falters, in the long run.