Thoughts For The Week - 2025.09.14
The Software Engineer's Journey, Step forward or to the side, Intent vs Impact.
1. The Software Engineer's Journey
Hemant Pandey’s post contains a great visualisation of the different skill sets and aims you should have at different points in your career as a software engineer. Every company will have slightly different definitions but the patterns remain the same. How can you make more impact? You can do this by mentoring more junior devs, influencing other teams, helping define culture, guiding leadership and with more collaboration outside of your core team. All of these amplify your impact.
2. Step forward or to the side?
A large part of leadership is being proactive and striding forward. Take the infographic from part 1 above. Lots of action words for the goals “deliver”, “improve”, “contribute”, “lead”, “influence” and “define” But there’s another aspect which shouldn’t been overlooked.
Dr. Annie Faulkner’s post “The Quiet Power of Stepping” highlights the balance that is needed to also make sure you’re leaving enough space.
“the best leaders I have had the pleasure to work with have a different sort of maturity. The kind that comes from really doing the hard work of learning when to step to the side, so others can have space.”
Where do you need to step up and be more proactive and where do you need to step aside to leave space for someone else?
3. Intent vs Impact
As a leader successfully giving feedback and delegating tasks is key to success. However, we can often cause frustration or confusion because this information or the requests are misunderstood. A badly worded message that was rushed could be easily be misinterpreted and taken negatively.
Dermot Kilroy’s "Intent Is Invisible, Impact Is Real" post highlights the importance to sharing intent:
That’s the blind spot many of us fall into as leaders. We assume our intent is obvious, when in reality it’s invisible. Once words leave us, people fill in the gaps with their own fears, assumptions, and stories.
It’s why I now make a habit of naming my intent, especially when delivering feedback. A simple line like “I’m sharing this so we can work it through together” doesn’t guarantee it will land perfectly, but it at least reduces the chance of my words being mistaken for a verdict.
Where could you share your intent to add clarity?
Have a great week