Thought Leaders

I have many thoughts about this topic but I’ll try to keep it short: I don’t like this thought leadership in engineering, where it’s mostly about being an influencer and less about having a good influence.

It rubs me the wrong way. You could just say that it annoys me and I should ignore those parts of the internet. But it actually worries me because it feels like small cult-like groups in which engineers won’t grow: They’re caught in an echo chamber, which makes them feel like they’re growing, but instead of growing as a person and engineer, only a single opinion grows within them.

It’s this thought leadership where the same small set of design patterns is repeated over and over again, and held up as the holy grail. It’s no longer just opinionated, it’s dogmatic. It becomes bad-mouthing of different opinions and fighting over minuscule details, instead of taking a step back and seeing all the similarities.

That’s obviously the wrong way to approach leadership.

In the beginning of my professional career, I was surrounded by people I looked up to — now good friends, whom I still look up to. I was often listening in on their discussions, and while of course everyone did their little opinionated comments for fun and the occasional nerdy joke, it always concluded with: everything is a tradeoff. There are upsides and downsides. What worked great this time might not work great the next time.

I strongly believe that this time in my life shaped me into who I am today. Of course there was a time during which I held certain opinions higher than I should’ve, and boy did I boast about them being the best. It was the classic case of the Dunning-Kruger effect, and I was at the peak of Mount Stupid.

But those people around me asked questions. And I didn’t have an answer to them. And then they shared their professional experience and knowledge, which over time expanded my horizon.

These lessons have influenced how I approach leadership today. Today, I’m in a technical leadership role at work. I’m aware that my opinions can have an influence on my peers. I’m also aware that my technical decisions will have an influence on the business. This awareness, combined with the experiences when I grew as an engineer, shapes how I approach technical leadership at work.

I often emphasize to my colleagues that my decisions are centered around consistency, simplicity, and using established patterns. I’m opinionated in the sense that I strongly believe that this is the best approach for the company, based on business needs and risks.

Obviously I also have some opinions—very small opinions in comparison. For example: I think that state machines tend to make a business process more restrictive than the actual process. But I won’t preach about those little things. If I’m going to preach anything, it’s about being more aware of the business impact you have as an engineer.

I don’t want to call out any of the “thought leaders” or influencers I mentioned earlier, which is why I’ve kept my critique intentionally vague. If you read this and you feel like you might need to defend yourself, because you see yourself as such a leader or as part of a group, I encourage you to reflect on how you influence others, the broader community and yourself.