When engineering values collide with business pressures, lead with conviction!
Building conviction isn't a one-time exercise. Mine gets tested almost weekly. Last month, our biggest client threatened to walk if we didn't prioritize their feature request over our planned security upgrades. The old me would have caved immediately. Instead, I explained our reasoning, offered a compromise timeline, and held firm on not sacrificing security.
They stayed.
I've learned this approach the hard way. Five years into my role as a Senior Engineering leader at a movie startup, our team was bleeding talent and missing deadlines. During a particularly tense retrospective, one of our senior devs, someone who rarely spoke up, finally said what everyone was thinking: "We don't know what we're fighting for anymore!."
That hit me like a bucket of cold water.
The conviction vacuum
Most engineering leadership advice focuses on processes, frameworks, and methodologies. Scrum this, Kanban that. We've got certificates plastered all over our LinkedIn profiles to prove that we've sat through all those leadership workshops. But honestly? None of that matters if you're leading without conviction.
Conviction isn't just believing you're right (God knows I've been spectacularly wrong enough times). It's about having a clear, unwavering vision of what "better" looks like and the courage to steer toward it even when faced with doubt, resistance, or the temptation to chase every shiny new framework that promises to fix everything.
After that retrospective, I spent a weekend holed up in my apartment, surrounded by sticky notes, trying to articulate what I actually believed about building software and leading teams. Not what I'd heard at conferences or read in books. What I'd learned through painful experience.
What conviction looks like in practice
When we tackled "Project Fortress" last year, redesigning our authentication layer, securing it, and adding another social login without disturbing the existing experience, we faced intense pressure to rush implementation. The marketing team was pushing for the new social login to secure promotional funding from a partner, and the CEO was asking for daily updates. The easy path would've been cutting corners to hit the deadline.
Instead, I stuck my neck out and said we needed another three weeks, not because I enjoy missing deadlines, but because I deeply believe that engineering debt compounds in ways that destroy teams. I've watched it happen three times in my career.
That decision wasn't popular. Our VP of Marketing didn't speak to me for a month. The timing was particularly tense because a major blockbuster movie was releasing just a couple weeks later, and Marketing wanted to piggyback on that momentum with our new login option. But six months later, when our competitors were scrambling to patch security holes, our system remained solid, and the team felt proud of what we'd built.
Conviction means making tough calls and owning them, even when they're unpopular.
Four principles I've learned to stand by
Through trial, error, and more humbling moments than I care to admit, I've developed some core principles that guide my leadership:
Technical excellence isn't optional. I've watched teams try to "move fast and break things" without the underlying discipline. They inevitably implode. We practice TDD not because it's trendy, but because I've seen firsthand how it transforms quality.
People over process, always. That brilliant architecture means nothing if your team is burned out. I learned this one the hard way in 2019 when we pushed too hard and lost three senior engineers in one month.
Transparency builds resilience. When we had to sunset our legacy product last quarter, I shared the full financial context with the team. Some leaders thought this would create anxiety. Instead, engineers proposed cost-cutting alternatives I hadn't considered.
Growth requires discomfort. The teams I've led have accomplished their best work when stretched just beyond their comfort zones. There's an art to finding that sweet spot without pushing into anxiety territory.
The ongoing journey
What I've come to realize is that conviction is contagious. When your team sees you standing for something meaningful, even when it's difficult, they start doing the same. Decisions become clearer. Meetings get shorter. Work becomes purposeful.
I'm still figuring this out, still making mistakes. But I sleep better knowing that when my team shows up each morning, they understand what we're building and why it matters.
So I'll ask you: What's your conviction story? What principles guide your technical leadership that you've learned the hard way? And how has standing firm on those principles changed your team's trajectory? I'd love to hear your experiences in the comments.
Sometimes the most valuable thing we can share isn't our successes, but the moments that forced us to define what we truly believe in
Random Truth:
Did you know that the term "debugging" originated in 1947 when computer pioneer Grace Hopper discovered a moth trapped in a relay of the Harvard Mark II computer? She literally "debugged" the machine, coining a term that stuck!
