The Human Stack 🧠

After a decade in tech, I’ve learned that the hardest problems and the best solutions are always human.

I’ve spent the last decade writing code, leading teams, building systems, and trying to make sense of startups, growth, and failure. In that time, I chased every new framework and devoured countless “tech stack” articles. I was obsessed with how the pieces of technology fit together. Yet the more projects I built, the more I realized that the biggest challenges were never just about the code at all. The bug fixes and scaling issues were important, sure, but the truly make-or-break factors were often the people building and using the software.

Early in my career, I thought success would come from mastering the technical stack, choosing the right language, the optimal architecture, and the perfect deployment pipeline. And I did grow as an engineer, eventually becoming a tech lead and even co-founding a startup. But as I moved from solo coding into managing and mentoring others, a pattern became clear: even the slickest tech stack can crumble if the human side is lacking. I’ve seen a product with brilliant code fail because the team building it couldn’t communicate. I’ve also seen a scrappy prototype succeed beyond expectations because a passionate, aligned team willed it into existence.

Lessons in People, Growth, and Failure

So what do I mean by “The Human Stack”? It’s a tongue-in-cheek term I use for the layers of human elements that underpin every successful project. Just as a software stack has layers (database, backend, frontend, etc.), the human stack is made of things like communication, trust, empathy, resilience, and leadership. These are the building blocks that don’t show up in your architecture diagrams, but absolutely determine whether your app will thrive or die.

One lesson I learned the hard way is that growth isn’t just a technical scaling problem. When my startup began to grow rapidly, I thought our biggest hurdles would be things like server capacity or adding new features fast enough. Those did matter, but what kept me up at night were questions like: Are we hiring the right people? Are we maintaining our culture as we scale? Can our team handle the stress of fast growth? In one chapter of this journey, I watched a talented team nearly burn out because we neglected those human questions. It became clear that scaling the human side (roles, relationships, processes) was just as critical as scaling our systems.

And then there’s failure, something every builder faces sooner or later. I’ve had my share of all-nighters and failed releases, and even an entire product that we had to shut down. Those moments hurt. In retrospect, though, they taught me more than any success ever could. I learned to embrace humility and to listen. I learned how important it is to foster an environment where it’s okay to talk about what’s not working. Blaming technology for a failure is easy (“the algorithm didn’t scale,” “we had a bad roadmap”), but often the root cause is human. Maybe we didn’t understand the customer’s real needs, or the team wasn’t aligned on the mission. A strong human stack means owning up to mistakes, supporting each other, and turning failures into lessons. It’s not about avoiding failure at all costs (that’s impossible); it’s about building the trust and grit to navigate failure together when it happens.

Throughout these experiences, I started paying as much attention to people as I did to code. I began to prioritize one-on-ones over pull requests, design discussions over new libraries, and team retrospectives over deployment scripts. Don’t get me wrong, clean code and solid architecture are still vital. But I now see them as half the equation. The other half is how we work together and who we become in the process. This insight is both humbling and empowering: humbling, because it showed me how much I had to learn about leadership and empathy; empowering, because it means even thorny problems can be solved if we focus on the human fundamentals.

Why I’m Starting this Newsletter

I’m kicking off “The Human Stack” newsletter to share this journey and hear about yours. Over the years, I’ve gathered stories, moments of bright triumph and dark frustration, that all taught me something about the human side of tech. I plan to explore questions like: How do you build a team culture that outlasts any project? What does effective leadership look like in a startup sprinting at breakneck speed? How can we, as makers, take care of our mental health in an industry that glorifies hustle? And how can we center users and communities in the products we create, not just as metrics but as people?

My goal is not to preach or offer quick fixes, but to open up an honest conversation. Some posts will be personal stories from my time in the trenches, shipping product updates at 2 AM, grappling with co-founder disagreements, mentoring junior devs, and being mentored in return. Other times, I might distill lessons I’ve learned (and am still learning) about leadership, productivity, or balancing innovation with stability. I’ll celebrate the wins, but I won’t shy away from the messy stuff either. After all, the messy stuff is where the real growth happens.

If you’ve read this far, chances are something in this topic resonates with you. Maybe you’re an engineer who was suddenly thrust into a management role and felt completely unprepared. Maybe you’re a founder figuring out how to keep your company culture intact as you scale. Or maybe you’re just someone who cares about the people part of building cool things.

Welcome 🙏

I hope my stories and reflections will spark your own, and that you’ll chime in with your perspective. I truly believe that by sharing these insights, we can all get a little better at this whole human+tech thing.

Thank you for reading The Human Stack. This is just the beginning of a conversation I’m excited to have. In the coming weeks, I’ll be writing about some specific principles of the human stack, and I invite you to reply or comment with your thoughts. Let’s learn from each other as we go.

Until next time,

Jephtah

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