Culture

Unpopular Decisions

When I was starting my engineering career, I would often argue with the team on technical decisions. But as I grew, I learned that these things aren't black and white. I remember when I just turned 20 years old, and I was working in the Communications dept at the Federal Reserve. One of my coworkers printed out a gray rectangle and posted it on my monitor. It helped remind me of that fact.

And since that time I started seeing that there any many points of view. There's usually a reason why somebody made a certain decision, and often times it's not even technical. There are all sorts of factors to consider, such as legacy costs, bugs that will inevitably be caused by a large refactor, etc.

So whenever I encounter such scenarios, I really take the time to explore why the team has a certain point of view, rather than jump to explaining my technical correctness.