The unsexy work that makes great products

Most devs ship and pray. I shipped, then tried to make it fail.

Not because I’m a pessimist. Because trust is built in the edge cases.

The experiment

I spent a day forcing Resumate AI to crash:

• Uploads that fail

• Timeouts and flaky APIs

• Editor saves that “silently” die

• Random network drops

The goal: design failure like a feature.

What changed

• Uploads — Clear reasons when it fails (too large, wrong format, bad connection) and exact next steps

• Long analyses — Visible progress with an option to check back later instead of staring at a spinner

• API hiccups — Plain‑English feedback on whether to retry or if it’s on us

• Editor saves — Immediate alerts plus auto‑recovery so your work isn’t lost

Why this matters

A “perfect” app is a fantasy. Systems fail. What matters is how they fail.

With Resumate AI, failure states are designed to make you feel:

• Informed — You know what happened

• In control — You know what to do next

• Confident — You trust the system is on your side

No blame. No confusion. No guessing.

The unsexy work

I also cleaned up 80+ docs. Killed contradictions. Labeled what matters. Order creates speed. Speed ships value.

What’s next

The resume editor is getting conversational. Less wrestling with formatting. More clarity about your story.

If a tool respects your time when things go wrong, you’ll trust it when things go right.

Get early access

👉 Join the waitlist to be first in and get early‑bird pricing.

Talk soon,

John

P.S. Got a terrible error message story?

Reply and share it. I’m featuring the best ones.