Backend
Lessons From Debugging in Production
It's terrifying — and incredibly valuable
Photo by Pixabay from Pexels.
No matter how many tests you write, production will always surprise you.
One time, an edge case related to time zones broke a financial report — but only for users in Argentina. No one caught it in staging.
That experience taught me a few things:
- Add logging before you need it
- Feature flags are your best friends
- Panic fixes usually create future bugs
Production debugging humbles you. But it also sharpens your instincts.
After that, I started logging with context, not just messages. Every debug step became a breadcrumb for future me.