How to Build Empathy on Teams That Never Meet the User
With guest: Anton Zaides, Engineering Manager & Founder of Manager.dev
There’s a moment in this conversation with Anton Zaides I keep thinking about.
He’s telling me about flying drones.
Not just writing code for drones.
Flying them.
Under the blazing sun.
In the middle of Kansas.
With a $30,000 aircraft and a ticking battery clock.
Why?
Because he wanted to understand what his users actually go through when they interact with the software his team was building.
Anton’s team builds drone tech for ag operations. But it’s not just a software problem. It’s a deeply physical, highly specialized domain with real-world constraints: battery life, sun glare, laptop durability, unstable field connections.
“I didn’t want to be just another manager in the Tel Aviv office writing specs. I wanted to understand what it feels like to do the job,” he said.
So he got his commercial drone pilot license. Flew to the U.S. Did the fieldwork. Spent an entire day performing a full customer operation.
It changed how he led.
And it changed how his team built.
When You Can’t Dogfood the App
It’s easy to tell your team: “Care about the user.”
But what if your user is a farmer in the Midwest—flying drones over crops with your custom equipment in full sunlight?
How do you “dogfood” that?
The reality is, most engineers never see their product in use. And for complex, B2B, or physical-world products—it’s not just inconvenient.
It feels impossible.
But as Anton proved, it’s not.
He recreated the user experience in Israel: a day in the field with his engineers. They flew drones. Worked under the sun. Uploaded fields. Watched the AI processing. Walked the full customer journey, end-to-end.
It didn’t just build empathy.
It changed decisions.
UI elements got rethought after seeing how poor sunlight affects visibility
Battery usage strategies changed once they saw how fast things drained
Engineers asked better questions and made smarter trade-offs—because they understood the why
Why Empathy Isn’t Fluff—It’s Strategy
Anton called it “care.” I’d argue it’s one of the most underdeveloped strategic assets in modern engineering.
When developers feel the pain the customer feels, everything gets sharper:
Priorities make more sense
Trade-offs are easier to make
Features get built with more intentionality
Bugs get fixed with urgency, not annoyance
And maybe most importantly—your team gets re-energized.
Because writing code that actually helps someone? That’s the work developers want to do.
“The empathy goes both ways,” Anton told me. “When users say thank you, it charges you up. It becomes a feedback loop.”
What This Looks Like in Practice
You don’t need drones to do this. And your engineers don’t need pilot licenses.
But you do need to create ways for them to get closer to the user’s world.
Here are five Anton-inspired practices to try:
Host team-wide “Demo Days”—where engineers demo to the whole company, not just stakeholders
Invite engineers to ride along on sales or support calls—and make it normal, not just “research”
Simulate edge environments—like sunlight, battery constraints, poor bandwidth
Use screen recordings and session replays—and narrate what’s happening from the user’s perspective
Highlight “day in the life” stories—so engineers picture a real person, not just an endpoint
These steps seem simple.
But they move your team from abstract understanding to emotional connection.
That’s where better decisions start.
We’re All on the Product Team Now
Anton and I agree on this: In the age of Ai, the old silos don’t work.
You can’t build great products if only the PM understands the user.
You can’t write smart prompts if the developer doesn’t understand the problem.
Product isn’t a job title anymore.
It’s a mindset.
One that starts with empathy—and leads to ownership.
Empathy Isn’t Optional Anymore—It’s the Edge
This article is inspired by Product Driven, the upcoming book for engineers, managers, and founders who want to build software that actually matters.
Anton’s story shows up in one of our favorite chapters—about empathy, user connection, and engineering culture.
👉 Join the waitlist and get first access at productdriven.com/book