Working on products people hate

By: Sean Goedecke Date: March 27, 2026 URL: https://www.seangoedecke.com/working-on-products-people-hate/ Tags: good engineers

Summary

Sean Goedecke reflects on his career building unpopular software at companies like Zendesk and GitHub. He argues that individual engineers have limited control over whether products become beloved or despised, despite their technical quality.

Key Points

The Reality of Team-Based Software Development

Goedecke explains that "a very strong engineer can slightly improve the quality of software in their local area" but ultimately operates within larger company systems shaped by organizational incentives. Individual heroics get absorbed into the broader codebase.

Value of Working on Disliked Products

Rather than viewing unpopular work as failure, Goedecke sees it as valuable perspective-building. "Working on products people hate forces you to accept how little control individual engineers have" over user perception. This humility matters more than assuming talent alone determines outcomes.

Professional Responsibility

Engineers should prioritize balance between company sustainability and user needs. Reading criticism requires emotional resilience without resorting to dismissing users or abandoning responsibility through quitting.

The Silver Lining

Widely-used but unpopular products often deliver significant value. Making incremental improvements to "a widely-used but annoying product" represents meaningful impact, even without fixing structural problems.

Inevitable Career Experience

Goedecke concludes that "almost every engineer will work on a product people hate," making it sensible to avoid blame and recognize such work as normal career progression.