Work on Big Problems!

Some of the most satisfying projects I’ve worked on were also the messiest and least certain. They weren’t on any “quick win” list; they were the problems that made me stop and think, f*ck, this is going to be a stretch. And that stretch, technical, product, or organizational, ended up teaching me more than anything.

This post is a short reflection on why it’s worth picking those bigger challenges, what “big” really means in day‑to‑day product engineering, and a few tactics for steering yourself toward them without getting overwhelmed.

Contents

• What Does It Mean to Work on a “Big Problem”?
• Seek Problems
• Connect Your Work to the Bigger Picture
• Be Uncomfortable
• Focus on What Matters
• Cultivate a Big-Problems Culture
• Choose the Hard Path

What Does It Mean to Work on a “Big Problem”?

Working on a “big problem” doesn’t always mean curing world hunger or putting a man on Mars. In the context of product engineering, a big problem is any challenge that is ambitious in scope, significance, or difficulty. It could be a technical moonshot, for example, rearchitecting a core system to handle 100x more load, or it could be a product-defining, like redesigning an onboarding flow to completely eliminate a major pain point for users. The common thread is that it’s a problem that stretches your skills and has towering impact if solved.

Big problems are often characterized by uncertainty. They might not have a clear solution at the outset. In fact, they can feel insurmountable at first, the kind of challenges that can’t be solved by following a known recipe.

It’s worth noting that “big” doesn’t necessarily mean glamorous or widely celebrated. Sometimes the most impactful problems are behind the scenes. For example, reducing the checkout flow from five steps to one might seem less flashy than working with the latest LLM, but if that simplification is a game changer for users and drives up conversion rates, it’s absolutely a big problem worth solving. The essence is that it really matters.

As engineers, we often know in our gut when a problem is substantive, it’s the kind of problem where, if you don’t step up to tackle it, it might never get solved properly. In fact, things that simply won’t happen if you don’t do them are your biggest opportunity to work on something that matters. In other words, when you spot a critical issue or bold idea that everyone else is ignoring or afraid to touch, you may have found your next big problem.

But, why voluntarily choose the harder road? Why not just stick to the comfortable backlog of small tasks?

When you aim at a genuinely hard problem, you can’t help but grow. New tech, weird edge cases, and plenty of “wait, how do we do this?” Every tough win boosts your confidence and sets you up to tackle even bigger challenges next time.

Big problems also move real numbers for the business. Instead of just shipping another ticket, you’re fixing the bottleneck that bleeds money or launching the feature that unlocks a new revenue stream. Leadership notices work that bends the curve, and suddenly you’re the person they trust with the hairy projects.

Users feel the difference too. They don’t rave about tiny tweaks, but slash their page‑load time or remove an unnecessary workflow step and they’ll thank you with loyalty. Solving the pains that actually keep people up at night beats polishing minor annoyances every time.

There is also the spark of meaning, there. A bold goal turns a job into a mission, rallying your team through the inevitable rough patches and giving you stories you’ll be proud to tell later. Hard problems are harder, but they’re also what make the work worth doing.

Choosing to work on big problems accelerates your personal development, creates a greater impact on your company, and delivers higher value to users, all while infusing your work with a greater sense of purpose. It’s a win-win scenario for your career and for the people benefiting from your work.

Seek Problems

Okay, big problems are great, but how can we actually integrate this mindset into our day-to-day work as engineers? It’s one thing to philosophize about ambitious goals, and another to act on them when you have sprint tasks and bug backlogs looming.

One of the most valuable habits you can build is stepping back to ask: What’s the actual problem here? Not just the task in front of you, but the real pain or opportunity behind it. Sometimes the ticket in Jira is just the surface of something deeper. So zoom out. What’s hurting the team or the product the most right now?

And hey, if you spot something important that no one else seems to be talking about, like a bug users keep running into or some tech debt that’s slowing down every sprint, say something. Or better yet, start poking at it. A lot of high-impact work doesn’t show up in your backlog; you have to go looking for it. Be the kind of teammate who sees those things and says, “I’ve got this.” It might mean pitching a project that wasn’t on the roadmap, or jumping on the thing everyone’s been quietly avoiding. That kind of initiative is what separates people doing work from people doing the right work.

Connect Your Work to the Bigger Picture

It’s easy to get lost in implementation details. You’re fixing bugs, building features, merging PRs… but at some point it helps to stop and ask: Why does this even matter?

If you don’t have a good answer, that’s a flag. Either the task doesn’t connect to something important, or you just haven’t uncovered the connection yet. Dig in. When you understand how your work fits into the bigger picture, the user experience, the business need, the team’s goals, it gets a lot easier to do it well. Sometimes you realize, “Wait, this little feature isn’t actually what we need, there’s a better way to solve the problem.”

And when that starts happening regularly, you’ll find yourself naturally leaning toward the stuff that actually moves the needle. You’ll know what’s worth your time and what you can either skip or hand off.

Be Uncomfortable

Let’s be honest, big problems are scary. It’s totally normal to feel a little imposter-y when you’re staring down something messy, undefined, or with a lot riding on it. That’s fine. In fact, that discomfort is usually a sign that you’re about to grow.

If everything you’re doing feels easy, you’re probably playing it too safe. Pushing into the unknown, even if it means stumbling around a bit, is how you get better. People thrive when they frame challenges as opportunities to grow. So yeah, that anxious knot in your stomach? Might actually mean you’re on the right track.

Give yourself permission to mess up or take longer when working on hard things. The payoff won’t always be instant. But over time, the stuff that once seemed impossible? It’ll be just another Tuesday.

Focus on What Matters

You don’t have infinite time or energy. Nobody does. So you’ve got to be deliberate about what you say yes to.

That might mean ignoring some Slack messages for a bit, or not fixing every tiny bug the moment it appears. It might feel weird, like you’re dropping the ball, but here’s the thing: doing great work on the right stuff often means letting the less important things go. That’s not failure. That’s prioritization.

Protect your time. Carve out space for deep work. Big problems don’t get solved in 15-minute chunks between meetings. They need focus. They need mental clarity. You won’t get that if you’re constantly in firefighting mode.

Solving one big problem well usually beats solving ten small ones in a hurry.

Cultivate a Big-Problems Culture

You’re not in this alone. One of the best ways to have a lasting impact is to help your team adopt this mindset too. Talk openly about the problems that actually matter. Ask in retros or planning: What’s the most important thing we could work on right now?

If you’re in a leadership role, or even just a more experienced dev, you can model this behavior. Show people that it’s okay to think big, to experiment, to fail and learn. Celebrate ambitious efforts, not just tidy wins.

This kind of thinking spreads. When people see you consistently choosing meaningful work, they start doing it too. Over time, it builds a culture where chasing high-leverage problems is the norm. And when your team is aligned around solving something big together? That’s where the magic happens. That’s how real change gets made, one brave problem at a time.

Choose the Hard Path

As a reflective person, my advice to peers (and a reminder to myself) is this: don’t shy away from the hard problems.

The easy stuff can feel productive. Checking boxes, shipping quick fixes, wrapping up tidy little features, it gives you that dopamine hit. But if you zoom out a bit, you’ll probably find that the things that really mattered, the ones you’ll remember in 10 or 20 years, weren’t the easy wins. They were the big, messy, slightly terrifying challenges you took on and stuck with.

Those are the projects where you grow the most. They stretch you, teach you, and leave something behind that actually matters. But yeah, they’re hard. They take courage. You might stumble. You might not get that instant validation. But when those payoffs do land? They land big.

As engineers, we’re in a pretty unique position. We don’t just build stuff, we solve problems. We make things better. So… why not go for the biggest problems we can realistically take on?

There’s this quote I love from Larry Page:

If you’re not doing some things that are crazy, then you’re doing the wrong things.

That doesn’t mean you need to be reckless. But it does mean that if nothing you’re working on feels a little ambitious, or makes you slightly nervous when you talk about it… you might be playing it a bit too safe.

So dream a little. Not in some vague “shoot for the stars” way, I mean in the way you code, design, and make decisions. Start small if you need to, but keep your eyes on something bigger. Aim for work that nudges you out of your comfort zone.

Because here’s the cool part: over time, that big scary thing becomes normal. Your baseline shifts. What felt bold last year becomes just another Tuesday now. That’s how we grow, not just as individuals, but as teams and as companies. The biggest leaps forward don’t come from a hundred minor tweaks. They come from brave work on big problems.

And no, this isn’t about ego. It’s not about chasing glory or looking impressive. It’s about using your skills where they matter most. We only get so much time and energy. Why not spend it on the stuff that makes a real difference?

So next time you’re looking at your backlog or figuring out what to build next, try asking:

Am I working on a big enough problem?

If the answer’s no… maybe it’s time to level up. The world has plenty of hard problems that need solving. And we’re builders. This is what we’re here for.

Let’s go do the work.