When I first started building software, I thought success was all about the big, shiny wins. Shipping features. Launching redesigns. Standing back and pointing at something on the screen like, See that? I built that.
And sure, those moments feel great. They're easy to show off. They're easy to explain. But over time, I realized that some of the most meaningful work I've done doesn't show up in release notes or demo videos. It's the small, invisible work—the stuff that makes everything better without ever announcing itself.
Small Fixes, Big Impact
I remember working on a project where I caught a focus trap during accessibility testing. It was the kind of bug that would've trapped keyboard users inside a modal window with no way out. Nobody sent me a thank you note for fixing it. Nobody ever knew it was there. But because of that fix, users could move around the site freely, without even thinking about it. And that was the win.
On another project, I spent a few afternoons quietly updating our internal design system documentation. It wasn't glamorous. No flashy new components. No sweeping redesigns. Just small improvements—clearer descriptions, better examples, a few diagrams to show how components fit together. A few months later, a new engineer onboarded onto the team and was able to get productive in half the usual time. They didn't know why things felt easier. They just got to work. And that, too, felt like a win.
Maintenance Nobody Sees
Invisible work also shows up in all the maintenance nobody wants to talk about. It's when you quietly fix a confusing form label before it becomes a support ticket. It's when you catch a weird edge case during QA that would've frustrated users in production. It's when you take an extra hour to make sure keyboard navigation is smooth across every major workflow, even though no one asked you to. It's the kind of work that rarely gets a headline but saves future teams—maybe even future-you—hours of headaches later.
Building Trust in the Background
Early in my career, I chased the big, visible wins because they were obvious. They were easy to point at and say, See? I made a difference.
But the longer I've been at it, the more I value the quiet, invisible work—the work that's felt more than it's seen.
It reminds me of a line from The Recruit, where Al Pacino's character tells the new CIA recruits:
Your failures are known. Your successes are not.
Walter Burke, CIA Agent Recruiter
That's invisible work in a nutshell. If you do it right, no one notices. If you miss it, everyone does.
Invisible work builds trust. It keeps systems usable, resilient, and accessible. It clears a path so that other people don't have to fight through the same frustrations you once did. It makes the product better not because someone demanded it, but because it should be better.
Nobody hands out awards for clean ARIA attributes, accessible focus order, or documentation edits that make a new hire's life easier. And that's fine. Some wins aren't supposed to make noise. They're just supposed to make everything work a little better. And honestly, that's the kind of work I'm proudest of.
A Little Amélie in the Code
It reminds me of one of my favorite movies, Amélie. If you've seen it, you know Amélie Poulain is someone who finds joy in making small, almost invisible improvements to the lives of the people around her. She fixes broken things quietly. She tucks little moments of magic into places no one else would think to look. She doesn't seek credit. She just believes that the little things matter — even (or maybe especially) when nobody notices. Check out this blog post that explains why I think she'd be a great UX engineer.
Honestly, that’s what I hope for my work, too. Not every commit needs a standing ovation. Not every fix needs a trophy. Sometimes, the best thing you can build is the thing that quietly makes someone’s day a little easier, a little less frustrating, or maybe even a little more joyful.
And if nobody ever knows you were there? Well — that's kind of the point.