Customer Empathy

At Level 1, customer empathy begins with awareness. You’re learning who the customers are, what they’re trying to do, and why it matters. You begin to connect your engineering work to their goals—recognizing that even small technical choices can shape their experience. You start by listening—to customer stories, support pain points, and what the data shows about user behavior. You may not interact directly with customers yet, but you’re beginning to care about how your code, instrumentation, and reliability affect them.

Key Behaviors

  • Reads customer feedback, support tickets, or usage data to understand real problems
  • Asks questions about how users experience the product
  • Considers how code changes, bugs, or outages impact the customer experience
  • Uses personas, use cases, or shared stories to understand context
  • Begins to notice patterns in where users struggle

Common Struggles

  • May focus on technical details without customer context
  • Might assume what matters without validating with data or stories
  • Can feel distant from customer needs or emotions

Success Indicators

You know you're successful when you:

  • Show interest in the customer’s experience and goals
  • Listen to feedback with curiosity, not defensiveness
  • Ask, "Who is this for?" and "How will it affect them?" regularly
  • Begin to factor customer impact into your day-to-day decisions

Mindset Shift

From:

"I write code."

To:

"I help solve customer problems."

Questions to Ask Yourself

  • Who is affected by this change—and how?
  • What feedback have we received on this feature or flow?
  • What would frustrate me if I were using this?

Build These Habits

  • 1
    Read feedback or complaints regularly
  • 2
    Sit in on support or user research calls if possible
  • 3
    Keep a running list of observed customer pain points

Seek Feedback

  • "What’s been frustrating for customers lately?"
  • "How are users actually using the thing I built?"
  • "What parts of the product cause the most confusion or support load?"

Signals You're Ready to Level Up

  • You consider customer impact by default, not as an afterthought
  • You bring up customer context during planning or review
  • Others trust you to care about the person on the other side of the screen

Focus Summary

  • Listen closely
  • Care deeply
  • Begin with the customer

At Level 1, customer empathy is about paying attention. You’re beginning to connect your work to real people—and that’s where meaningful software starts.