This resonates a lot. The shift from "was I right?" to "does this actually help people?" changes everything. I've found that the engineers who got promoted fastest weren't always the smartest problem solvers, they were the ones who genuinely cared about the end outcome.
The hardest part is that user focus is sometimes at odds with technical cleanliness. You can ship something inelegant but useful, or elegant but slightly off from what people need. Most orgs mess this up by choosing elegance.
The hardest part is that user focus is sometimes at odds with technical cleanliness. You can ship something inelegant but useful, or elegant but slightly off from what people need. Most orgs mess this up by choosing elegance.