The brief was open, engineering was driving, and the tools being built were designed for the people who built them. My job was to decide where the line sat between what an investment banker should control and what they should never have to see.

Three calls defined the work. I made plain language the front door and kept the technical controls one level down, so nobody lost power. I borrowed navigation patterns bankers already use every day instead of inventing new ones. And when a feature that had already been built failed in a quick test with real bankers, I cut it and replaced it with something in their vocabulary.