The Best Engineers Don’t Wait for Permission

Something I’ve noticed over the years: the best engineers rarely wait around for someone to tell them exactly what to do.

They understand what we’re trying to accomplish, see something getting in the way, and go deal with it. They fix the thing nobody assigned them, push back on the plan, or build a tool because the current process is obviously wasting everyone’s time.

That doesn’t mean doing whatever you want. Some decisions need a conversation, and some are risky enough that you should pull people in early. The great ones have a feel for what they can just solve, what deserves a heads-up, and what needs someone else to decide. Pushing back counts too. At Granular, I described our idea of teamwork as the willingness to challenge each other and confront differences head on.

I’ll take the person who shows up with “here’s what I think we should do” over the one who asks “what do you want me to do?” every time.

The problem is that organizations get really good at teaching people to wait. Something goes badly, so you add an approval, then a review, then one more person to consult. Pretty soon someone who could have fixed a problem in an hour is waiting three days for a meeting, and eventually they stop trying.

You can say you want ownership all day long. People watch what happens when they actually take it, and if they get second-guessed a few times, they learn to escalate. That’s on leadership, not on them.

Give people enough context to know where you’re going and enough room to use their judgment on the way. The best engineers don’t need much more than that.