Draft: Two Years At HERO Software
A reflection on two years at HERO Software, the work that shaped me there, and what I learnt before moving on.
30 March marked two years at HERO for me and, by coincidence, the beginning of my final month there. That overlap made it difficult not to look backwards. Before moving on, I wanted to understand what those two years had actually amounted to beyond features, milestones, and meetings.
Over that time, I had the delight to work with people from across design, engineering, product, and operations. Some of the work was visible immediately. Some of it only mattered because it made later work more coherent, more durable, or more worth doing.
This is therefore not a farewell note, nor a catalogue of personal successes. It is a reflection on the work that shaped me most, the moments that made it memorable, and the lessons I want to carry into whatever comes next.
Design Vision
The clearest thread running through my time at HERO was what became known as the Design Vision. I was drawn to it early because it brought together many of the things I care most about: product clarity, technical quality, and the belief that software should feel intentional rather than merely functional.
What began as a cluster of ideas gradually became a broader direction for how parts of HERO could look, feel, and evolve. Along the way, I found myself taking on more responsibility for shaping not only the technical execution, but also the standard to which that work should be held.
The turning point came during HERO’s inaugural hackathon in 2024, where we presented an early version of that vision and unexpectedly won. More important than the win itself was what followed: the sense that these ideas were not just speculative, but strong enough to move into the product.
The first visible expression of that work arrived through the new navigation surfaces. They became an early proof that design ambition and implementation discipline did not have to be in conflict. In a relatively short time, we moved from concept to something customers could actually use, then refined it through iteration and feedback until it felt stable enough to carry a broader rollout.
By the time that first milestone had settled, the work had already outgrown its initial scope. It was no longer only about a better interface. It had started to influence how people collaborated, how quality was discussed, and how future work could be grounded in stronger shared foundations. That mattered to me just as much as the visible outcome.
Shared Moments
Some of my most memorable moments at HERO came from the periods where work became unusually concentrated: hackathons, conferences, workations, and the kind of trips where professional context gives way to shared memory.
The two hackathons stand out in particular. They compressed weeks of discussion into days of alignment and forced ideas to become legible quickly. In 2024, that meant rethinking some of HERO’s most visible surfaces and discovering that the result resonated far beyond the room it was presented in.
In 2025, the same intensity reappeared in a different form through work on customisation. Winning again was gratifying, but what stayed with me more was the clarity that good collaborative work produces: a small group of people, a shared direction, and just enough momentum to make something convincing.
Outside those concentrated bursts, there were also quieter moments that gave the work texture. I still think fondly of Groningen, of the heat at WeAreDevelopers, and of Prague. Those trips did not simply punctuate the calendar; they deepened my sense of the people behind the work.
Work As Craft
Much of my work over those two years sat at the intersection of design, engineering, and delivery. Some of it was immediately visible. Some of it was quieter and only mattered because it made later work easier, clearer, and more coherent.
The part I remain proudest of is not one specific feature, but a repeated pattern: helping make the product more deliberate while also making it easier for teams to build on. Whether I was working on navigation, customer-facing workflows, or the smaller improvements users never notice directly, the underlying goal stayed more or less the same. Reduce friction. Increase clarity. Leave the system in a better state than I found it.
Over time, I came to care just as much about the quiet work as the visible work. Better foundations, clearer conventions, and fewer rough edges rarely make for dramatic release notes, yet they compound more reliably than almost anything else. They give teams confidence, and confidence is what allows good product work to keep moving.
That changed how I thought about craft. I began to see foundational work not as support work, but as product work in a stricter sense: the kind of work that determines whether quality can be sustained or only briefly displayed.
What It Taught Me
From a technical perspective, these two years gave me a much clearer understanding of how architecture evolves over time, and of the judgment required to work with that evolution instead of against it. I became better at recognising when to push for a higher standard, when to compromise, and how to articulate the trade-offs in a way other people could meaningfully act on.
From a product perspective, I learnt that speed matters most when it shortens the distance between an idea and real feedback. I also learnt, repeatedly, that “good enough” is often the only honest threshold for a first release of something that still needs to be tested in the world rather than in theory.
I also came to terms more honestly with my perfectionist tendencies. In a growing product shaped by many people, perfection is rarely the right target. What matters more is whether the work becomes clearer, more useful, and more respectful of the people who rely on it. I wrote about part of that shift in The Sisyphean Struggle for Simplicity.
From a team perspective, I left more convinced than ever that trust, clarity, and technical quality reinforce one another. The strongest teams I worked with were not necessarily the loudest or the fastest. They were the ones that could rely on each other, share critique without losing respect, and keep quality high enough to believe in what they were shipping.
What comes next
Leaving HERO does not feel like closing a chapter neatly so much as setting down work I cared about and trusting that it will continue in capable hands. I am grateful that I had the chance to contribute at all, and even more grateful for the people with whom I got to do it.
From May onwards, I will be moving on to a new project related to Germany’s digitalisation efforts. I do not yet know exactly what that next chapter will ask of me, but I know that I am taking this period of work, its lessons, and its standards with me.
Until next time
Yours truly, Jairus Joer