Unique Strengths, Unique Minds: Treating Engineers as Individuals, Not Resources

It’s way too easy and wrong to consider all engineers look alike, do the same job, and can be replaced by another engineer.

Photo by Esteban Castle on Unsplash

With over 15 years working in engineering, I‘ve seen many things and worked with various types of profiles across various companies, cultures, and positions.

I’m not talking about IC leveling, Senior, Staff, etc. I’m talking about what’s behind us as humans: our mindset, how we think, what we are looking for, and what is propelling us in our work life. In this article, I’ll focus on the archetypes of engineers. Managers must get this to work efficiently, not see all engineers as just “cattle” and understand how to manage each individual’s career.

What’s your story?

I love understanding everyone’s story and why they are here, in this position, at the right time we speak. It’s always fascinating and rarely basic. It’s more often a series of opportunities and coincidences.

• Opportunities unravel how we think and what we want.
• Coincidence tells us how we react to the unexpected.

Are you like me? I wish I could ask everyone on the street, the train, the bus, why they are here at this instant and what is driving their life. Everyone is interesting in their own way.

I want to distill what makes each engineer unique, why we always over-simplify our view of engineering, and what are the typical mindsets of engineers.

Are we unique? d1000000000

You take the road, it’s 11pm, thinking you’re going to be alone on the road because “why would anyone else would drive at this time in this place?” and boom. The road is crowded, like rush hour, and you don’t understand why, and the other people do neither. You understand every family is unique, and each person is unique. We all have our story. We are billions on Earth and living our (only?) life.

We are unique in our behavior, in our brains, in how we think, and in what we want to achieve. When we’re being conceived, it’s like a roleplaying game: dozen of thousands of dice are rolled about each of our traits, and here we are. The Sims nailed it.

GROUP BY traits, patterns

To help us comprehend each other, work together as a society, and avoid global mayhem, we always try to group things together and get a better grasp of a situation or a person.

• We see someone? We look at them, how they dress and move. Boom, one word comes into our mind to think of this person.
• We talk to someone? In seconds, we analyze how they talk, respond and what questions they ask. Boom, one word in our mind to characterize this person.

Thanks, evolution. We must be able to detect a threat in the blink of an eye to survive, in case a dinosaur was hiding in the bush trying to eat us (jk, we did not meet them, right?). Our brain excels at analyzing a situation precisely for this reason: its colors, its noise, its shape, and its movement (our brain thinks about the next step already).

Our brain is excellent at identifying patterns and categorizing them. Over our lifetime, we see countless objects, people, and scenes, and our brain categorizes these experiences to make them easier to process. For example, when we see a person, our brain might quickly categorize them as ‘friendly,’ ‘threatening,’ ‘familiar,’ etc., based on various visual cues.

• It’s small with fur with big eyes: it’s nice ❤️
• It’s big with big teeth: danger, run ⛔️
• It’s big with small teeth: ok, watch your step ️⚠️
• It’s moving fast and difficult to predict: danger; WTH is that ⚠️
• It’s small, moves slowly, very colorful/fluo: danger; don’t touch ⚠️

All this is built from experience. We had to go through some delicate situations to understand dangerous situations from non-dangerous ones. Over millenniums, we have continued building this, it’s just part of our nature, and we keep building this every day, reacting to everything happening to us and the world. It was beneficial for our ancestors to assess their environment and identify threats or opportunities quickly.

Associating quick labels or judgments with visual stimuli was probably a survival mechanism, and today it’s more of a huge bias driving us.

Imagine: you’re walking in Manhattan, NYC. You hear a loud noise coming from the streets. In seconds we feel our brain acting crazy, adrenaline pumping up to give us energy, telling us to back off urgently. No, it was not a gun or bomb or a plane, but only a delivery driver who accidentally dropped something from their truck.

All of these experiences, personal and collective, forge our mindset to interpret anything and react accordingly fast. We do the same with engineers.

While these automatic associations can be helpful, it's essential to recognize that they can also lead to biases or misconceptions, especially when dealing with people. Stereotyping, prejudice, and other negative biases often arise from these automatic associations.

It’s crucial to be aware of them and strive for mindfulness and open-mindedness in our interactions.

mindfulness: a technique you can learn which involves noticing what’s happening in the present moment, without judgement.

We love thinking in one dimension because we suck

We are so lazy. We are very good at associating anything with one word and don’t question it further. It’s generally the best we can do and what makes us comfortable.

Going back to engineering, I will distinguish between 5 archetypes of engineers I have seen throughout my career. Each of us could recognize ourselves.

• The Idealist
• The Implementer
• The Enabler
• The Builder
• The Perfectionist

It’s not black and white. We are often a composition of these types or we change over time:

• We may start as Implementer and ten years later be an Idealist
• We can stay a Perfectionist for our whole life
• We can be 30% Idealist, 70% Builder

The main idea is that engineers are not interchangeable. When someone leaves, and someone else joins, you will lose something and win something else. It’s like Diablo IV: you find a new item, slightly better in some aspects, somewhat worse in others: what do you prefer? What are you looking for? What do you NEED right now? At least, all the attributes are explicit in Diablo IV: it’s not that clear for humans.

First Archetype: The Idealist

All founders should be idealists. Leaders should be. Product Managers should be. Engineers could be. It’s when people are visionary, creative, and forward-thinking. Idealists are the dreamers of today who look beyond the present. They conceptualize products and solutions that might seem outlandish today but become the norm tomorrow.

It’s essential to have a few people in a company thinking outside the box, challenging the status quo, and knowing where your professional domain is going or should go. Not everyone should be an idealist, or you’re going nowhere except in thousands of directions. Idealists are rarely focused.

Breakthrough innovations often come from wild ideas. The best ideas often come from accident or coincidence, but you must be aware.

Sir Isaac Newton is said to have been inspired to formulate his law of universal gravitation after observing an apple fall from a tree, prompting him to ponder the nature of gravity.

It’s “easy” to have ideas, but in an organization, it’s way more tricky to have some plan to execute them iteratively to detect if it’s viable and valuable. Any plan should be a mixture based on facts and gut feeling (intuition)— things we cannot back with facts easily, but we feel it’s the way to go; our experience is speaking.

It’s crucial to balance idealism with practicality and pragmatism, not to be seen as a foul, always talking but effectively doing or planning nothing.

Here, the career ladder matters less. Having the time to think and discuss new ideas and challenges with open-minded people is our goal. This is where joy sparks. The start of the execution matters too: to prove it was the right path. When it’s done, it’s time to switch to something else, another idea, other discussions. An idealist never stays on one idea for a long time. The interest is about starting journeys and seeing their success from a few feet away, not being fully part of it.

Second Archetype: The Implementer

This is typically the primary workforce. These are the do-ers. They should represent 80% of your engineering. This is typically what non-engineers think of all engineers and what we are all exchangeable. We often start here, and then we may stray from this path and find our strength elsewhere.

Sometimes, we suck at implementing things as engineers. It’s a talent; not every engineer has this trait or desire to excel at it.

Implementing software needs a very analytical and disciplined state of mind. Such engineers are reliable in what they build and have a deep knowledge of the vast amount of small details hidden that only they know.

The journey of an implementer is paved with decisions, way more than the executives in a company. Every line of code, every architectural decision, and every comment, every discussion, to write a feature, needs decisions.

• How to name this variable? This class to group things? (There are only two hard things in Computer Science: cache invalidation and naming things.)
• Should I use a 3rd party library or do it myself?
• Error management?
• Logs? Metrics to monitor?
• Ensure the feature works as expected, are expectations clear and make sense?
• Which data sets should I use to test the features?
• How does it scale? How does it work under failure?
• Should we invest in a significant code quality for a feature or just ‘good enough’ for now? Based on what?
• Will other engineers understand and be able to maintain this?
• …

There are infinite ways to write a piece of software. An implementer needs a massive FOCUS to answer all these questions efficiently. Time management is crucial here. Each context-switching (a Slack notification, a “Hey, what’s up” in the office) disrupts the flow of thought, often leading to delays and decreased productivity. Maintaining a consistent train of thought and minimizing distractions is essential for optimizing software development.

The flow, sometimes referred to as “being in the zone,” is a mental state in which a person is fully immersed in a task, characterized by complete absorption, focused energy, and enjoyment in the process of the activity. In the flow state, people often lose their sense of time and experience a deep sense of satisfaction.

For Implementers, career matters. There is often a desire to get more done and be responsible for having more autonomy in decisions and the size of the features/projects to build.

The best Implementers just want a strategy and directions. They will build toward it and needs little supervision. To do that, they need your entire trust. This will go through massive failures that you have to accept, but also massive successes. As I explained in my previous post: We build trust not during times of success but during challenging times, trust is the crux of everything in a company.

Third Archetype: The Enabler

Still WIP, but the article is long enough already. Sharing in advance, please comment if you find this interesting and you want me to finish it properly!

• Supportive, problem-solving, and observant.
• Enablers ensure a conducive environment for both builders and executors. They are the oil that keeps the machine running smoothly.
• The significance of a positive, obstruction-free work environment.
• The tools and methodologies that aid in an efficient workflow.
• The art of troubleshooting and removing roadblocks.
• Career matters, more responsibilities, broader scope, more enablements

Fourth Archetype: The Builder

Still WIP, but the article is long enough already. Sharing in advance, please comment if you find this interesting and you want me to finish it properly

• Innovative, pragmatic, hands-on.
• Builders are foundational. They set the stage for everyone else. Their work involves the initial design and architecture, ensuring scalability and sustainability.
• The importance of a strong foundation in any project.
• The balance between innovation and feasibility.
• How builders often need to foresee challenges and preemptively tackle them.
• Customer-driven
• Not interested in production readiness, all the small things, user experience, documentation, etc.
• Career matters, but creating cool stuff matters more. Depends on the potential of the company. Work in a company often works per wave: you innovate, then you consolidate, then you innovate again, etc. But it’s waves of 6 months ~ 1 year. A builder needs to build; waiting is not good enough; it looks like the end of time.

Fifth Archetype: The Perfectionist

Still WIP, but the article is long enough already. Sharing in advance, please comment if you find this interesting and you want me to finish it properly

• Detail-oriented, meticulous, relentless.
• Perfectionists elevate the standard of the product. Their relentless pursuit of excellence ensures that the code or design is not just good but exceptional. Ensuring every aspect is polished to a shine.
• The dual-edged sword of perfection: While they elevate standards, they might sometimes get entangled in the minutiae, losing sight of the bigger picture.
• The balance between perfecting a product and delivering it on time.
• Understanding when “good” is “good enough” for the market is significant.
• The challenge of ensuring that their pursuit of perfection aligns with the overall value and impact of the project.
• Career matters

Conclusion

Engineers are not interchangeable. Engineers are not “cattle”. Do you understand each of your engineers personally? What is propelling them? Nurture their strengths and trust them.

According to your organization's size and stage (Seed, Series A, etc.), your company doesn’t need the same ratio of engineering archetypes. You must understand your workforce's strengths and weaknesses and be able adapt.

Is this what we need today? Are you having too many implementers without thinkers? Having too many thinkers and not enough builders?

Sometimes, it’s not the right time to think anymore but the time to focus and build. According to your growth and results, you need to realign expectations and let go of people if they did what they came for.

Communication is key. Communicating appropriately with everyone is crucial when making hard decisions. Telling this story will help and will make sense to everyone. Without explaining the WHY, you will create waves of incomprehension, leading to problems you could have avoided.

Help engineers know what archetype they are and what they want to be. Build upon their strengths and let them do the magic they’re good at. Complement them with other engineers having a different sort of magic—diversity matters.