The Art of Technical Implementation: Do You Really Know What Problem You’re Solving?
Software development is fundamentally about using technology to fulfill business requirements. These requirements exist to solve real problems—user problems, executive challenges, operational bottlenecks. Yet many engineers find themselves racing from feature to feature, sprint to sprint, without truly understanding what problems they’re addressing or whether their solutions actually deliver meaningful value.
Let me share a story that illustrates this perfectly.
The Tunnel Light Dilemma
There’s a popular vacation destination in Northern Europe, a summer retreat that draws tourists through a long tunnel. Safety engineers posted a sign at the tunnel entrance: “Turn on your headlights.”
Visitors dutifully switched on their lights, drove through the tunnel, and enjoyed their vacations. But when it came time to leave, many discovered their cars wouldn’t start—dead batteries from forgotten headlights. Local police found themselves constantly jump-starting cars, exhausted tourists complained about ruined trips, and the town’s tourism industry suffered. The mayor was under pressure.
The obvious solution? Add another sign at the tunnel exit: “Turn off your headlights.”
But this created new problems. Night drivers, confused by the instruction, turned off their lights and crashed. So the sign was updated: “If it’s daytime, turn off your headlights.” Then visitors who missed the entrance sign but saw the exit sign became confused…
Sound familiar? This is exactly what happens in software development. Stakeholders come to you saying, “We need this button here, that feature there.” You implement it, only to discover it creates more problems. So you add more if/else statements, more edge cases, more complexity. You’re not solving problems—you’re creating them.
The Real Questions
Let’s step back and ask: Whose problem is this really? Who’s best positioned to solve it?
If it’s the mayor’s problem, maybe install charging stations in the parking area. If it’s the police department’s problem, hire more officers. But if it’s the tourists’ problem—and they simply aren’t aware of it—then the solution isn’t to solve it for them. It’s to make them aware: “Are your lights on?”
This simple awareness allows people to solve their own problems.
As engineers, we must ask ourselves: What problem are we really solving? Whose problem is it? Who’s best equipped to address it? These questions determine whether we’re actually creating value or just adding complexity.
Three Key Principles
1. Don’t Confuse Solutions with Problem Definitions
In my years across different companies and countless technical meetings, I’ve noticed something troubling: we rarely discuss what problem we’re actually trying to solve.
Meetings typically start with solutions. Product managers present features they want built. Architects propose technologies they want to implement. But the fundamental question—“What problem does this solve?”—rarely gets addressed.
When disagreements arise, they’re usually about implementation details, not about whether we’re solving the right problem. People argue passionately about how to build something without understanding why it needs to exist.
Next time you’re in a technical meeting, pause before jumping into the discussion. Ask yourself: Has the problem been clearly defined? What’s the real issue behind this requirement? Will what we’re discussing actually solve it?
When you redirect the conversation back to the problem itself, you become the person with the most technical influence in the room.
2. Sometimes You Don’t Need to Solve Others’ Problems—Just Make Them Aware
Child development experts offer interesting advice for when toddlers fall and start crying. Don’t immediately tell them to “be brave” or criticize them for being careless. Instead, hold them and say, “I know it hurt.” Repeat this until they stop crying, then encourage them: “You’re brave, and you can handle this next time.”
The child’s pain is their problem, but they need emotional support to solve it themselves. The parent’s role isn’t to eliminate all future falls—it’s to provide comfort and build resilience.
Similarly, in our tunnel story, forgotten headlights are the tourists’ problem. They’re perfectly capable of turning them off—they just need to be reminded.
In software development, we often over-engineer solutions to problems that users could easily solve themselves if they were simply aware of them.
3. Fish Don’t See the Water They Swim In
People immersed in problems often don’t recognize them as problems. They adapt. It’s only when someone solves these issues that people realize, “Oh, the old way was actually terrible.”
When you join a new environment and notice problems that everyone else ignores, it’s not that they’re incompetent or you’re overly critical. They’ve simply adapted to the dysfunction.
Here’s the formula: Problem = Expectations - Experience
Your fresh perspective and different expectations can be your competitive advantage. If you solve problems that others have learned to live with, you become the person who “sees what others miss.”
The Bottom Line
The true measure of any technology is whether it actually solves real problems. Before implementing any technical solution, we must clearly understand what business problem we’re addressing and whether our approach will effectively solve it.
Without this clarity, we risk using familiar technologies or trendy solutions on problems that require something entirely different. This doesn’t create value for the company or advance our technical skills.
But when we consistently use technology to solve real problems effectively, something powerful happens. We build technical confidence. We know we’re creating genuine value. We develop conviction in our ability to change the world through technology.
This eliminates the constant self-doubt about whether to move into management or change careers entirely. When you know your technical work matters, you want to keep doing it.
Your Turn
What resonates with you from the tunnel light story?
If you’re managing someone with performance issues, whose problem is it really? The company’s? Yours? Theirs? And if it’s primarily their problem, how can you make them aware of it in a way that empowers them to improve?
What’s your experience with mistaking solutions for problems? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.