"Engineering that starts with humans, not code."
Human-Centered Engineering (HCE) is a systematic engineering framework for building products by starting with deep understanding of real users in their actual contexts, then letting that understanding drive every technical, design, and business decision.
For six years, I used a 3-question framework to guide feature development:
- What problem are we solving?
- How will we solve it?
- Why choose this solution over others?
This served me well from junior to senior engineer. Then I discovered something transformative: my "framework" was essentially Simon Sinek's Golden Circle.
Start with human context. Everything else follows.
Most engineering starts with questions like "How should we architect this system?" or "What technologies should we use?" HCE starts with "Who are we building this for, and what do they actually need in their real-world context?"
This isn't about adding user research to your existing process. It's about making human understanding the foundation that informs every technical choice you make.