The challenges (and joys) of building tech for human behavior

Introduction

Building technology might sound like a clean exercise in logic and code; algorithms, endpoints, and tidy databases. But in the research technology (ResTech) world, we’ve discovered it’s anything but clean-cut. At the heart of every integration, every API call, and every dashboard is something far less predictable: people.

At Cint, our mission is to feed the world’s curiosity. But more and more, we’re also supporting developers who want to build survey journeys directly into their systems, whether it’s survey creation, targeting, tracking, or delivery. That means our platform doesn’t just respond to human behavior, it helps shape and influence it.

Humans are dynamic, emotional, and complex. And that’s where things get interesting. We've learned to embrace both the mess and the magic of building tech for real people.

APIs and the human puzzle

APIs usually feel like logic puzzles, with inputs, outputs, and a well-defined structure. But in ResTech, every API is tied to a human being on the other end.

When developers work with our APIs, they’re designing entire user journeys: selecting questions, timing launches, filtering for quality, and trying to create an experience that keeps participants engaged. A seemingly simple POST request might decide whether a respondent completes a survey or if they exit five questions in.

People get bored. They skip instructions. They game the system. And sometimes, their behavior defies prediction. Our job is to build systems resilient enough to handle that unpredictability, while still creating a smooth experience for researchers and respondents alike.

The cultural context

Erin Meyer reminds us in The Culture Map that cultural intelligence isn’t optional, it is essential. In a world where your platform supports surveys and integrations across dozens of countries, you quickly realize that culture shapes everything.

The way people read and respond to surveys can vary just as much as how developers in different regions approach integration. What’s intuitive in one language might be confusing in another. A custom question, an incentive offer, or a timeout setting might work beautifully for one audience and frustrate another.

That’s why building truly global APIs isn’t just about endpoints and payloads. It’s about clarity, context, and respect. It’s about understanding the people on both sides of the interface.

Why we love working with human behavior

There’s a special kind of thrill in watching your code connect with real people:

• When a campaign’s engagement rate jumps because you fine-tuned the targeting.
• When a developer launches their first survey integration and watches results populate in real-time.
• When a system you built correctly predicts where people might drop off, and adapts to help them stay.

We find joy in building things that are more than technically solid. We want our tech to be empathetic, inclusive, and surprisingly delightful.

Lessons learned (sometimes the hard way)

• Lead with empathy – Design with care. For survey participants and the engineers building on your platform. Both are users. Both matter.

• Stay flexible – Don’t over-engineer for certainty. Unpredictability is the only constant. Build systems that bend instead of break.

• Iterate often – Ship fast, learn fast. Developers appreciate consistent improvements, clear communication, and tight feedback loops.

Conclusion

When you build technology for humans, it’s never as tidy as a codebase— but that’s what makes it worth doing. In ResTech, we’re doing more than shipping features: we’re building tools that help people understand other people. At the end of the day, the better we understand each other, the better we build.

- Pranshu Mahajan (Manager, Technical Program Management)