How to help yourself move forward when you feel stuck
mindi weik · the tech academy · oct 23, 2026None of that was a detour from tech. It is where I learned to work with people who are not engineers.
Onboarding new inference providers, pulling more of the AI ecosystem into one place developers can more easily reach.
Founding engineer on a CRM for performing artists, meaning we do it all! Building, designing, testing, infrastructure, etc.
Everyone gets stuck. The problem is what we do next. The usual instinct is to go quiet and wait, either for permission or for the one right answer to arrive.
Have any of you actually experienced this before?
"How do I solve this?"
Leads to one answer, and you do not have it.
"What can I do right now, in the next ten minutes?"
Several, and you can start on any of them.
Same situation, different shape.
Other ideas that may have worked for you?
Add a clearly labelled placeholder, and keep building the parts that do not need it yet.
Help them help you, don't put all the work on your resource.
You are allowed, and really should, keep working while you wait.
It is efficient, you keep learning as you go, and you might even answer your own questions.
Do you have concerns about methods? Do you have questions about ideas that you have, or do you want to share an experience you've had that helped you get unstuck?
Open the app. One button will show you something you cannot fix.
Write one email, one precise question. Send it to the ops address.
Three bugs in the app. This is the real content, and it happens against the clock.
Stub becomes live. Nobody leaves stuck, no matter what.
A community lost-pet registry. Someone's cat got out. The site mostly works, which is the point: it looks finished enough that the problems read as bugs to find rather than a broken page.
Click "Show on map" on any animal. You will get a panel that says the map needs a location service key. That key is not in the code, and it is not on the internet.
You cannot fix this one. So what can you do right now?
"Hey, the map doesn't work, can you help?"
"The map panel needs a location service key. I have the panel and the placeholder built and everything else in the app works. Can you send the workshop key for this provider?"
What you tried, what you built anyway, and one question. That is the difference between a request and a guess.
The Network tab will show you a failing request. It is one character wrong.
A dropdown option gives you nothing at all. No error. No red text. Nothing to read.
One button throws when you click it. Easy win if you get there first.
The loud bug teaches you to use the tools. The silent bug teaches you what to do when the tools have nothing to say: you instrument. You add your own logging and go look at what the app is actually comparing.
Blank is not a broken page. Blank is data.
And say the thing out loud when you are stuck. Silent is the only unrecoverable state.