Why I Fell in Love with Fixing Bugs

The Underrated Art of Bug Fixing

Most developers dream of building shiny new features. Greenfield projects. Fresh codebases with zero technical debt.

But here's the thing, I've learned to love the other side of the coin: fixing bugs.

Not because I enjoy suffering. But because there's something deeply satisfying about diving into a codebase, hunting down a problem that's been haunting production for days (or weeks), and finally squashing it.

Bug Fixing Is Detective Work

Every bug is a mystery. You have:

• The crime scene: A broken feature, a crashed server, or angry users
• The clues: Error logs, stack traces, and "it worked yesterday"
• The suspects: That recent PR, a third-party API, or maybe just a missing semicolon

Your job is to piece together what happened, why it happened, and how to fix it without breaking something else. It's like being a detective, but instead of fingerprints, you're reading through Git history and log files.

Why Most Developers Avoid It

Bug fixing has a reputation problem. It's often seen as:

• Boring (compared to building new features)
• Frustrating (especially in someone else's code)
• Thankless (users only notice when things break, not when they're fixed)

But this reputation is wrong.

Bug fixing is where you truly understand a system. You can't fix something you don't understand. Every bug you fix deepens your knowledge of the codebase, the architecture, and the edge cases that the original developers didn't anticipate.

What I've Learned From Fixing Hundreds of Bugs

Here are some lessons I've picked up along the way:

1. Reproduce Before You Fix

Never start fixing until you can reliably reproduce the bug. If you can't trigger it, you can't verify it's fixed.

2. Read the Error Message (Seriously)

Most developers (myself included) used to skip error messages and jump straight to Stack Overflow. But 80% of the time, the error message tells you exactly what went wrong. Read it.

3. Check What Changed Recently

git log and git blame are your friends. Most bugs are introduced by recent changes. Start there.

4. Isolate the Problem

Can you reproduce it in a simpler environment? Strip away complexity until you find the minimum conditions needed to trigger the bug.

5. Fix the Root Cause, Not the Symptom

It's tempting to slap a quick patch on the symptom. But if you don't understand the root cause, the bug will come back or create new ones.

6. Write a Test

Before you fix the bug, write a failing test that captures the buggy behaviour. Then fix the code until the test passes. Now you have proof it won't regress.

7. Document What You Found

Future you (or a teammate) will thank you. A quick note explaining what caused the bug and how you fixed it saves hours of re-investigation later.

Bug Fixing as a Superpower

If you can fix bugs efficiently, you become invaluable. Here's why:

• Teams need you. Every product accumulates bugs. Someone has to fix them.
• It builds deep understanding. You'll know the codebase better than anyone.
• It's recession-proof work. Even when companies freeze new features, they still need to keep existing products running.
• It sharpens your debugging skills. These skills transfer to everything else in programming.

My Approach

Over time, I've developed a systematic approach to bug fixing:

1. Gather context: Read the bug report, talk to the reporter, check logs
2. Reproduce: Set up the exact conditions to trigger the bug
3. Isolate: Narrow down where in the code the problem lives
4. Understand: Why is this happening? What's the root cause?
5. Fix: Make the minimal change needed to solve the problem
6. Verify: Confirm the bug is gone and nothing else broke
7. Prevent: Add a test, improve logging, or refactor to prevent recurrence

Conclusion

Bug fixing isn't glamorous. It doesn't get as many Twitter likes as launching a new product. But it's honest, valuable work.

If you're a developer who avoids bug fixing, I challenge you to lean into it. Take on that gnarly issue no one wants to touch. Dig deep. Solve it properly.

You might just fall in love with it too.

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Got a bug you can't figure out? Want help clearing your backlog? Check out dailybugfix.com — I help startups and dev teams squash bugs fast so they can focus on building.