Your Best Recommendation, Please

The art of software engineering is simply the art of problem-solving. Whenever an issue is brought to our attention, we usually brainstorm ideas, eventually pick a solution, and work toward it. Unfortunately, as a leader, it’s very easy to fall into the trap of making all the decisions yourself and failing to cultivate your team.

At YoPrint, here’s what we expect. When a problem is assigned to an Engineer, it’s their responsibility to come up with a few ways to solve the problem. On top of that, it’s their responsibility to propose their best solution. They will run the decision by Jason or myself, and if there are no obvious flaws, they can run with the solution and see what happens. Jason and I are there for a purely sanity check and maybe impart a little bit of wisdom we have accumulated.

This is how we cultivate good decision-making and build autonomy in the team. What we don’t want is a problem presented with no solutions or solutions presented with no recommendations. Have a little backbone. Take ownership.

There might be situations where it’s beyond the engineer’s scope of knowledge, and therefore, they are unable to form an opinion. However, if they cannot present possible solutions or have opinions on the best course of action all the time, then it just means that we hired the wrong person for the job.

I need problem solvers and not blind followers. This is not the military but a creative pursuit.