There’s this long-running myth in tech that refuses to die:
“The number of bugs you create reflects your skill as a developer.”

If you’ve been in the industry for more than five minutes, you already know how ridiculous that is.
Sure—sometimes bugs come from lack of experience or missing context.
But most bugs?
They’re not about competence.
They’re about the environment developers are thrown into.

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1. Bugs are usually a symptom of the environment, not the developer

Let’s be real for a second.

Half the bugs we ship happen because of:

• Impossible deadlines
• Constant scope changes
• Not enough engineers
• Zero onboarding time
• Completely new domains
• A tech stack you barely had 24 hours to learn
• “We need this feature by tomorrow” culture

Under conditions like that, even senior engineers will drop bugs.
This isn’t a “you” problem—
it’s the system you’re working inside.

Judging a dev by bug count is like judging a firefighter by how much smoke they inhaled.

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2. When the priority is speed, bugs are literally part of the deal

Startups, MVPs, hacky prototypes, urgent deadlines—
in those moments, “move fast” isn’t a slogan, it’s survival.

And here’s an uncomfortable truth:

👉 If you’re shipping fast, you will ship bugs.

Not because you’re sloppy.
But because you’re doing what the business needs right now.
You’re navigating unfamiliar languages, brand-new domains, constantly shifting requirements…
and still delivering.

That’s not incompetence.
That’s contribution.

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3. Developers are harder on themselves than anyone else could be

Nobody hates bugs more than developers do.
Nobody feels more embarrassed by a production issue.
Nobody wants a clean deployment more than the person who wrote the code.

Developers are perfectionists by nature.
We lose sleep over things nobody else even notices.

So when someone uses bug count to judge you, they’re missing the whole picture.
Completely.

That’s like telling a soldier,
“Why did you get shot at?”
while they were the one actually fighting the battle.

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4. Sometimes bugs are battle scars — proof you showed up

There are two kinds of leaders in war:

• The ones who watch from the map room
• And the ones in the trenches, covered in dirt, dodging bullets

Guess which one actually understands the reality of the field?

In software, too:

• Late-night hotfixes
• Cleaning up old tech debt nobody else touches
• Taking the first step into a brand-new system
• Shipping fast to unblock the team
• Taking risks so the company can keep moving

Sometimes bugs aren’t failures.
They’re the scars you earn because you’re the one actually doing the work.

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5. Using bug count as a performance metric kills good culture fast

When companies measure devs by bug count, this happens:

• Engineers stop taking risks
• Nobody experiments anymore
• Everyone becomes defensive
• Issues get hidden instead of shared
• Innovation slows to a crawl

Healthy teams don’t blame the people.
They fix the environment that created the bugs.

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6. A healthier way to look at bugs

Bugs are not mistakes.
They are signals—they show where systems can improve.

Instead of asking:

• “Who caused the bug?”

We should ask:

• How fast did we detect and fix it?
• What did we learn from it?
• How can we prevent it next time?
• How do we make this knowledge reusable for the whole team?
• What part of the system or culture needs improvement?

Bugs aren’t a performance metric.
They’re data.

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The truth: Bugs aren’t shameful. They’re part of building things that matter.

Nobody wants to ship bugs.
And bugs don’t mean you're bad at your job.

In fact:

• Bugs mean you started.
• Bugs mean you shipped.
• Bugs mean you took ownership.
• Bugs mean you learned.
• Bugs mean you pushed yourself.
• Bugs mean you moved the product forward.

Your bugs aren’t proof of failure.
They’re proof of effort, courage, and real contribution.

So if you’ve been feeling guilty about the things that slipped through the cracks?
Take a breath.

You’re doing better than you think.
And the fact that you care enough to worry
is already the sign of a damn good developer.