I’m trying to understand how localization is handled across different parts of a product, especially in teams that ship frequently.

On the product/UI side, I’ve seen cases where:

• new strings get merged without translations
• some languages lag behind others
• localization issues are only caught after release
• CI has no real signal that something is missing or out of sync

On the developer-facing side (API docs, READMEs, docs):

• docs stay English only even when the product is localized
• translated docs go stale quickly as content changes
• keeping multiple languages in sync is mostly manual

So I’m curious

• Which of these is more painful in practice: product/UI localization or docs localization?
• Do teams actively care about localizing docs, or is it usually not worth the effort?
• Are there any localization-related checks or automation you rely on during CI or PRs?
• What localization problems have actually caused real issues for we, developers, prioritizing docs or users?

Trying to figure out where localization tooling would provide real value versus being a “nice to have.”