April 8, 2025

As a mid-level engineer, I once proposed a simplified signup flow for our product. Number crunching revealed it could earn up to $1,000,000 over two years! 💰

I’d worked on the product for a couple of years, occasionally modifying the signup flow. The codebase had become gnarly, and the multi-step user experience a leaky funnel, causing potential customers to drop off at every stage. 💸

When a timely hackathon rolled around, I pitched a streamlined signup flow to my tech lead. As the original author of the flow, he quickly validated the idea. We teamed up and marathoned through the weekend—45 intense hours from Thursday to Monday—to build a working prototype. 😅

Our project unexpectedly caught the eye of the VP of Business Development, who immediately saw the huge financial impact of simplifying the flow. He helped us run the numbers, and the potential impact was massive! 🚀

He helped us refine our final presentation, encouraging us to 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗱 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗯𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗰𝘁. We iterated and rehearsed until our pitch was clear and sharp.

And on Monday morning… we won the hackathon! 🏆 Fancy headphones as a prize aside, the real reward was the recognition and the lessons we learned.

From that experience, I learned two key lessons that have stayed with me throughout my career:
1️⃣ Impact isn’t tied to your title—and it can show up in many forms.
2️⃣ Leading with business outcomes makes your work resonate far more.

✨ And yet—that new signup flow never shipped! Why? That’s a story for my next post. Stay tuned. 😉