Introducing the Human Stack

In enterprise SaaS support, I’ve spent more time than I’d like to admit inside systems that looked good from the outside but felt broken on the inside. Not because of the codebase.

Not even because of the tools. But because the people behind it were exhausted, disconnected, or just trying to survive the next ticket queue spike.

Over the years, I’ve started thinking of this in terms of the human stack.

It’s not a framework or a checklist. It’s a simple shift in perspective:
Behind every system, there are people. And those people are the reason why the system exists in the first place.

We tend to look at our work through the lens of process and technology, the how and the what. But we often skip the why. That’s the human stack.

What is the human stack?

It’s the foundation layer, the people doing the work, making decisions, responding to incidents, interpreting alerts, and yes, getting burned out from chasing unclear priorities.

It’s the interpersonal side of tech:

• trust (or lack of it)
• communication (or miscommunication)
• alignment (or confusion)
• motivation (or disengagement)

It’s all the stuff that doesn’t show up in logs or dashboards, but absolutely determines how systems behave under pressure.

If we don’t take care of the human stack, then the rest — process and tech — starts to drift. That’s when you get broken handoffs, outdated runbooks, and tools no one understands or trusts. And no amount of automation can fix that.

People: the Why

The human stack is the reason you’re building anything in the first place.

Your systems exist to support someone, a customer, a colleague, a community. And your team exists to make that happen. When we forget that, we start optimizing for the wrong things: output instead of outcomes, speed over sustainability.

Technical leaders have to ask:

• Do people feel like they can ask questions when they’re unsure?
• Is there enough psychological safety for engineers to say, “This process doesn’t make sense”?
• Are we rewarding deep work and collaboration, or just fast fixes and hero moments?

Without that human context, every decision about tools or process becomes guesswork.

Process: the How

Process is how people work together, or don’t.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: most orgs are sitting on a pile of outdated processes. The documents are there. Somewhere. But they don’t match how the work actually gets done. Or worse, they do, but the work is broken.

When no one owns the process, people stop trusting it.
When nothing gets updated, people stop following it.
And when leadership ignores that, people stop caring.

Fixing process isn’t about more documentation. It’s about bringing process closer to the people doing the work. Ask them what’s useful. What’s missing. What they’ve hacked around just to get things done.

That’s how you rebuild trust, not with rules, but with collaboration.

Technology: the What

Tools support your process. They don’t define it.

Too often, we buy tools hoping they’ll “fix” communication, or collaboration, or even culture. But tech is just the what. If the human stack is shaky, and the process is misaligned, no tool will magically make things work better.

A monitoring tool won’t fix alert fatigue if your team can’t talk honestly about what matters.
A ticketing system won’t make work flow if no one trusts the process behind it.

The key is not to stop investing in tech, it’s to align it with real needs, from the ground up. And those needs start with people.

How to start investing in the human stack

You don’t need a new budget or a reorg to do this. Just small shifts, consistently:

• Listen to friction: If a process feels painful, it probably is. Ask your team what’s slowing them down. Then fix one thing at a time.
• Make ownership explicit: Every critical piece of documentation or process needs a name next to it. No more orphaned runbooks.
• Connect work to purpose: Even in support roles, people want to know who they’re helping and why it matters.
• Normalize saying “this doesn’t work”: Give your team space to question how things are done without fear.
• Clean up, regularly: Archive stale docs. Retire tools no one uses. Simplify where you can. That’s how systems (and people) stay sane.

The payoff

Teams that take care of their human stack are calmer, faster, and more resilient. They don’t panic in incidents. They learn from mistakes. They fix root causes instead of blaming each other. And yes, they ship better software, too.

If you’re leading a technical team, don’t just focus on the tools. Or the process.
Start with the people.

That’s your why.
That’s your human stack.
Take care of it, and the rest will follow.