"AI-Powered" Is a Red Flag. Here's a Dev's Guide to Calling Bullshit.The term "AI-Powered" has become the new "cloud-based"—a meaningless marketing term often used to justify a price hike for a feature that is, at best, a glorified if/else statement. As engineers and technical buyers, our job is to look past the buzzwords and systematically dismantle the vendor's claims.Having evaluated dozens...
"AI-Powered" Is the New "Cloud-Based": A Dev's Guide to Calling Bullshit on Vendor Hype ** The term "AI-Powered" has become the new "cloud-based"—a meaningless marketing term often used to justify a price hike for a feature that is, at best, a glorified if/else statement. As engineers and technical buyers, our job is to look past the buzzwords and systematically dismantle the vendor's...
Everyone wants to hire from successful AI teams. This is a mistake. The most valuable people for your next AI project are the ones who have been through an initiative that completely cratered.Success stories are clean, retrospective narratives. Failures are messy, complex systems problems. An engineer who has navigated a failed AI project has a practical PhD in what actually breaks: biased...
Companies do this to curate a narrative. They'll accept structured data like "It’s too expensive" because it fits a spreadsheet. "Other" is where you find the real, messy feedback: the ghosted support tickets, the persistent crashes. It’s the data they’d rather not have.
Blocking this input isn't lazy design; it’s a strategic choice to prioritize clean data over real data. It signals that the company only wants feedback fitting its script, which is all the justification needed to leave. If you’re too scared to hear why I'm done, you don’t deserve my business.
This is a symptom of a broken feedback loop—a strategy of hiding problems, not fixing them. If you build products, check your exit survey. If "Other" is a dead end, you’ve told your most insightful users their feedback is worthless. Don't be surprised when they agree.