Why backend stability matters for user trust

The secret to embracing technical quality in product management that unlocks long-term success: Stop treating it like an afterthought. "But isn’t shipping features more important than backend fixes?" - you probably ask. No. Here’s why: • A slow, clunky product with random failures? Users leave. Fast. • Neglecting stability means downtime, crashes, and bugs that silently erode user trust. • Fixing performance later is costly, time-consuming, and painful. Just ask any PM who ignored it I learned this the hard way. Early in my career, I focused on delivering new features. I dismissed “stability work” as something to handle later. And at first? It seemed fine. 👍 Users were happy. 😀 Growth was steady. 📈 Until it wasn’t. 😱 A small bug in one update crippled a key feature. A long-awaited success turned into one nightmare of a night. Random crashes turned into support nightmares. Costly contract discounts had to be offered to keep clients. Database slowness forced us to pause everything and rebuild our databases with new indexes. It's clear as day: Performance is a product feature. It’s just as crucial as UX or functionality. Thus, a question naturally arises: "How do you know if you’re handling stability the right way?" Ask yourself: ✔ Do you listen to your team's advice? ✔ Are you regularly fixing high-impact bugs? ✔ Do you have automated crash reporting & alerts? ✔ Do you build with stability and scalability in mind? ✔ Do you book time to find an optimal tech solution? ✔ Have you set up a process to decide which bugs to fix? ✔ Do you find time for code refactors that are truly needed? ✔ Are security vulnerabilities proactively tested and patched? ✔ Is your database optimized with proper indexing and query tuning? ✔ Is performance a recurring discussion, not an emergency reaction? ✔ Do you monitor downtime trends and investigate even small outages? ✔ Do you test under real-world conditions, not just in a perfect dev setup? ✔ Do you stress-test your system under peak load conditions before it’s too late? ✔ Do you set a threshold where bug fixes take priority over new feature development? ✔ Do you optimize performance for low-end devices and slow networks, not just the latest hardware? Stability, scalability, and performance aren’t just a technical concern. Those are the fundamentals that allow your product to operate in the first place. Ignore it at your own risk. Do you believe you dedicate enough time to keep the product 𝘵𝘦𝘤𝘩𝘯𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 healthy? Sound off in the comments! #productmanagement #productmanager #technicalexcellence P.S. To become a Product Manager who cares for users and product health, be sure to check out my courses on www. drbartpm. com :)

In backend development, handling errors goes beyond just spotting exceptions; it's about bouncing back from failures while keeping the system intact. Robust error handling is like having a safety net; it ensures that even if something goes wrong, the user experience remains smooth. Imagine a website crashing every time it encounters an error; users would quickly lose trust. However, with well-designed error handling mechanisms in place, the system can recover gracefully, reassuring users and maintaining system integrity. This involves strategies like logging errors for troubleshooting, providing informative error messages to users, and implementing fallback mechanisms to prevent catastrophic failures. Ultimately, effective error handling is not just about fixing bugs; it's about building resilience into the system, ensuring uninterrupted service and enhancing user satisfaction.

Backend engineering isn’t about perfect code. It’s about predictable systems. Perfect code is a myth. But predictable systems? That’s what keeps products alive. • APIs that respond the same way every time. • Errors that fail in obvious, traceable ways. • Queries that return consistent results. • Logs that actually tell the story. Predictability is what makes debugging possible. It’s what makes scaling manageable. It’s what fosters trust in your system. It’s about building code you and your users can rely on.

When you ask people why they use OPay, you’ll probably hear things like “it’s fast,” “it never hangs,” or “it just works.” And they’re right, few apps move money across Nigeria with that level of consistency. That kind of reliability doesn’t just happen, it’s designed. And it’s what got me thinking recently about something we often overlook in product management. Most people know about functional requirements (what a product does). Non-functional requirements on the other hand, are about how it does it. The stability, speed, reliability, and security that make the experience feel effortless. An app like Opay doesn’t just “work.” It earns trust, and that’s the real difference between a product that people try once and one they rely on every day. As I researched more on this, I realized a few things: 1. The name “non-functional” can be misleading. It makes these requirements sound secondary, when in reality they’re deeply tied to user experience. Some experts even argue they should just be called quality attributes, because users feel them directly. 2. Teams often prioritize speed over stability. There’s pressure to release new features fast, but skipping performance and scalability conversations always catches up later, and it’s usually costly. 3. Every decision is a trade-off. Sometimes you can’t have everything: security vs. speed, beauty vs. performance. The real skill is in deciding early what matters most, and why. 4. Clarity drives quality. “Our site should be fast” is vague. “Our pages should load in under 3 seconds for 95% of users” gives the team something real to measure and improve. Behind every “effortless” app is a team that made hundreds of invisible calls about performance, reliability, and user trust. And as someone growing into product management, I’ve realized that learning to define, measure, and communicate those invisible expectations might just be the real edge because functional requirements make your product useful. Non-functional requirements make it unforgettable. So now I’m curious, what’s a product you trust completely, and what do you think makes it feel that reliable? P.S. I'm exploring more of this as I grow in product management and looking forward to applying these insights hands-on as a Product Intern or Associate. Let's work together! #ProductManager #WomenTechtersFellowship Tech4Dev Oluyomi O.

I’ve been working a lot lately to strengthen our backend, just as much as we’ve polished the frontend. Because here’s the truth: most D2C brands focus on what people see. Sleek packaging, viral content, a stunning website. And while all that matters… it’s not what builds long-term trust. If your backend isn’t rock solid—your brand is just a pretty face.  I’ve learned this the hard way. Operations, logistics, customer service, inventory flow, these things aren’t glamorous, but they’re non-negotiable. Great branding might win the customer once.  But great backend systems bring them back again and again. These days, my obsession isn’t with being seen, it’s with being reliable. So while we continue to grow what’s on the outside, I’m doubling down on what keeps it all running smoothly behind the scenes. Because real scale doesn’t happen on Instagram.  It happens in systems no one ever sees. If you're building a D2C brand—how strong is your backend? #D2C #Entrepreneurship