I tried defining Quality
I am still learning and redefining quality. Maybe that is the real lesson: quality is not defined once. It is something you define, defend, and refine again and again.
As engineers, we often talk about quality in code, features, systems, and the products we build. But the more I tried to define it, the more slippery it became. Everyone claims to want it, yet its meaning shifts depending on who you ask, what stage of the product you are in, and what constraints you are working with.
Press a little deeper, and quality stops being a universal truth. It becomes a moving target, a mirror reflecting priorities. For one, it has zero bugs and predictable behavior. For another, it is speed. For someone else, it is user experience.
I have cycled through all of these at different points. First, I thought quality was about clean code. Then, it meant the absence of bugs. Then, performance. Then, seamless user flows. At one point, it was developer experience; how easy it was to build and maintain. Eventually, it became about solving the actual user’s problem. Over time, I have realized quality is not one thing. It is a composite of many properties, and which ones matter most depends on the trade-offs you are willing to make.
The easiest way to talk about quality is through numbers: uptime, error rates, and latency.
Metrics are useful because they are tangible. You can track them, chart them, and set thresholds. But they can also be deceptive. A system can “pass” all the numbers and still feel low quality due to clunky flows or answers that are technically correct but miss the human tone.
But numbers alone cannot capture the messy, human side of quality; the trade-offs every team eventually faces.
One of the lessons I have learned: quality almost always competes with something else.
Ship fast or refine further. Add more features or keep fewer, more meaningful ones.
Innovate quickly or maintain stability.
When deadlines loom, quality quietly shifts from the ideal we would aim for in a perfect world to the minimum level that feels acceptable under the circumstances.
My real aha moment has come from reading user feedback and watching people use the product.
It was then that it hit me: quality is not just about correctness or speed. It is about whether the user walks away feeling their problem was solved.
No metric captured that. It is subjective and human, and yet it makes the difference between a feature that worked and one that failed.
I no longer see quality as a checklist. My working definition is
Quality is the degree to which a product consistently meets the right needs, for the right users, in the right context while balancing the trade-offs that actually make sense.
It is not static. It needs to evolve with the product and user expectations. The balance between speed, cost, and excellence shifts depending on where you are in the product lifecycle.
The danger is not having different definitions of quality; it is assuming everyone is aligned on the same one.
Engineering might push for reliability and scalability, design for usability, and product for market fit. None of them is wrong. But if you do not make those differences explicit, you end up with decisions that satisfy no one.
In practice, defining quality together forces the hard conversations. It makes trade-offs deliberate instead of accidental. It helps avoid the trap of saying we need to improve quality without agreeing on what that actually means. It might mean sitting down before a release and agreeing on the absolute necessary items for that particular release.
Every team’s definition of quality is really what it is willing to trade and what it refuses to compromise on.
I still do not have a universal definition that works everywhere. But I have learned that when a team aligns on quality for this release, this user group, this moment, the work sharpens, decisions get clearer, and outcomes feel intentional.
I am still learning and redefining quality. Maybe that is the real lesson: quality is not defined once. It is something you define, defend, and refine again and again as you and the product grow.
This is so true and valuable. It's important to be specific when discussing quality improvements. Instead of making vague statements like we need to improve quality, we should focus on clear and precise areas for enhancement. For example, we could say we need to improve the quality of this module, the specific flow, or a particular part of the flow.
Love this!