Walk me through how you'd solve [relevant problem] from scratch.

I'll tell you how I actually do it, because I've done it six times in the last year with production systems.

First, I embed. When the agency founder told me she needed practice management software, I didn't open my editor. I watched how the staff worked. I sat with therapists. I asked "why does this workflow exist?" until I hit the compliance requirement or safety concern underneath it. Every conversation revealed something documentation never would.

Second, I pick the simplest architecture that could work and start building. Not a prototype, not a mockup, the real thing. Tiny Time Keeper went from nothing to production in two days. I chose Next.js and Convex, built the MVP, and got it in front of users. Not because I'm reckless, but because real user feedback in 48 hours is worth more than three months of planning.

Third, I iterate based on what actually happens. Tiny Time Keeper launched with basic clock-in/clock-out. Then I watched. Employees forgot to clock out. So I added missing-punch detection. Admins needed to see who was late. So I added automated alerts. Unauthorized people tried PIN codes. So I added device authorization. Forty-eight features in 84 days, each one driven by a real problem observed in production.

The pattern is: understand deeply, build fast, observe, iterate. The understanding part is where most engineers skip. They build what they think the user needs based on a spec. I build what the user actually needs based on watching them struggle.