You are a Senior Engineer, Mastering Communication & Influence (Part 3)

I once watched a brilliant engineer lose a promotion to someone with half his technical depth. The difference? The other guy could explain his work in a way that made executives actually care.

This is a hard truth, but it's one we need to face. As we continue our journey through your professional development, it's time to zero in on the "soft skills"—communication, influence, and leadership—that often determine your career trajectory and impact more than your code does.

As a Principal Engineer, I have the great opportunity to mentor many seniors, and I can tell you right now: the difference between a senior who stays at that level and one who advances to staff, principal, or tech lead positions almost always comes down to these soft skills. So, grab your favorite brew, and let's dive into the essentials that will set you apart.

The Art of Communication

Communication isn't just about conveying information; it's about making connections, inspiring your team, and presenting your ideas effectively. Here's the truth: you could design the most elegant system in the world, but if you can't explain why it matters, it won't get built. Whether you're explaining complex technical details to stakeholders or mentoring a newcomer, the way you communicate can make all the difference.

Adaptability: Tailoring Your Message

In the fast-paced world of tech, your audience can range from highly technical peers to business-oriented stakeholders. The key to effective communication lies in your ability to adapt, and this is something I had to learn the hard way early in my career.

Imagine you're explaining a new architectural decision. To your engineering team, you'll dive deep into the technical specifics—maybe you're discussing the trade-offs between using a message queue versus direct API calls, the implications for eventual consistency, or the specifics of your chosen design pattern. You might talk about how this aligns with SOLID principles or how it improves your system's observability.

However, when presenting that same decision to executives, your focus should shift entirely to the business impact. They don't care about your elegant use of the Strategy pattern. What they care about is: how does this decision enhance scalability? Will it reduce our cloud costs? Does it help us ship features faster? Will it improve our uptime and reduce those 3 AM incidents that wake up the on-call team?

Here's a practical example: I once had to justify migrating our monolith to microservices. To the engineering team, I talked about service boundaries, deployment independence, and technology diversity. To the executive team, I framed it as: "This will allow us to deploy new features 10x faster without risking the entire platform, and it will reduce our incident recovery time from hours to minutes." Same decision, completely different framing.

The best part? You don't need to dumb anything down. You're just translating between contexts. Think of it like being bilingual—you're fluent in both technical and business language, and you know when to use each.

Patience and Repetition: Reinforcing Concepts

Here's something nobody tells you about being a senior: you're going to explain the same thing over and over again. And that's okay! In fact, it's part of the job.

Explaining the same concept multiple times, from different angles, until it clicks isn't a sign that you're bad at explaining or that your team isn't listening. It's simply how humans learn complex topics. Embrace this repetition—it's an opportunity to refine your explanations and ensure everyone's on the same page.

Think of it as an iterative process, much like software development itself. Each explanation is a new iteration, improving understanding and clarity. Your first explanation might be too technical. Your second might be too abstract. By the third or fourth time, you'll find that sweet spot where it finally clicks for everyone.

I remember when I was introducing my team to event-driven architecture. The first time I explained it, I lost them in the technical details of event sourcing and CQRS. The second time, I used a restaurant ordering system as an analogy—the waiter takes your order (event), the kitchen prepares it (event handler), and the waiter brings it out (another event). That's when I saw the lightbulbs go off. Sometimes you just need to find the right metaphor or example.

This patience not only helps in solidifying concepts but also in building a collaborative and inclusive environment where people feel safe asking questions and admitting when they don't understand something.

Embracing Questions and Uncertainty

Questions are inevitable, and how you handle them sets you apart. Here's something I've learned: the moment you pretend to know everything is the moment you lose credibility. Embrace curiosity, admit when you don't know something, and commit to finding the answer. This openness builds trust and fosters a learning culture.

For instance, in a meeting, if a junior developer asks a question that stumps you, instead of deflecting or making something up, acknowledge it honestly. Say something like, "That's a great question, and honestly, I don't have the answer right now. Let me look into it and get back to you by end of day." This not only shows humility but also models the behavior you want to see in your team.

I've had moments where a junior engineer asked about a specific edge case in our distributed system that I hadn't considered. Instead of brushing it off, I said, "You know what? That's a scenario I haven't thought through. Let's whiteboard this together and figure out what would happen." We ended up discovering a real bug that could have caused data inconsistency. That junior engineer's question saved us from a production incident, and they felt empowered to keep asking tough questions.

The best engineers I know are the ones who aren't afraid to say "I don't know, but let's find out together."

Feedback and Suggestions: Two-Way Communication

Constructive feedback is a two-way street, and getting good at both giving and receiving it will transform your team dynamics. For example, when reviewing a colleague's code, focus on providing specific, actionable feedback rather than vague criticisms. Instead of "This code is messy," try "I noticed this function is doing three different things. What if we extracted the validation logic into a separate function? It would make this easier to test and understand."

On the flip side, when receiving feedback, approach it with an open mind. This is hard—nobody likes hearing their work could be better. But here's the thing: even seemingly minor suggestions can spark innovation. I've had colleagues point out patterns in my code reviews that led to us establishing new team standards. I've had junior developers ask "why" questions that made me reconsider assumptions I'd been making for years.

The best feedback loop I've seen worked like this: during code reviews, we'd frame suggestions as questions. "Have you considered...?" or "What was the reasoning behind...?" instead of "You should..." This small shift made feedback feel collaborative rather than critical.

Diagrams: The Blueprint of Understanding

As a Senior Engineer, explaining complex systems clearly is a big part of your role, and this is where diagrams become your best friend. I can't tell you how many times a 10-minute whiteboard session with a diagram has solved a problem that hours of Slack messages couldn't.

Mastering Diagramming Techniques

There are three main diagramming approaches you should have in your toolkit, and each serves a different purpose:

UML (Unified Modeling Language): This is your go-to for detailing class structures and interactions. Use UML when you need to show how objects relate to each other, their methods, and their relationships. It's particularly useful when discussing design patterns with your team or planning out a new module's structure. For example, when I'm introducing the Factory pattern to my team, I'll use a UML class diagram to show the relationship between the factory, the interface, and the concrete implementations. It makes the abstract concept concrete.

C4 (Context, Containers, Components, Code): This is ideal for contextualizing software architecture within its environment, and honestly, it's become my favorite for most architecture discussions. The beauty of C4 is that it works at multiple levels of zoom. At the Context level, you're showing how your system fits into the broader ecosystem—what external systems does it talk to? Who are the users? Then you zoom into Containers to show the high-level technical building blocks (web app, database, message queue), then Components to show how the container is structured, and finally Code if you need that level of detail.

I recently used C4 diagrams to explain our platform architecture to new team members. The Context diagram showed how we integrate with payment providers and our mobile apps. The Container diagram revealed our microservices, databases, and message queues. By the time we got to the Component diagram, they understood exactly where they'd be working and how their code would fit into the bigger picture.

ArchiMate: This is your enterprise architecture tool. It's more formal and structured than C4, making it perfect when you're dealing with complex business domains and need to show not just technical architecture but also business processes, organizational structure, and how they all interconnect. I'll be honest, I don't reach for ArchiMate often, but when I'm working with enterprise architects or documenting large-scale organizational changes, it's invaluable.

Diagram Guidelines: Clarity and Consistency

Here's the thing about diagrams: a bad diagram is worse than no diagram at all. A confusing diagram will derail your meeting and leave everyone more confused than when you started.

Creating effective diagrams is both an art and a science. Here are the rules I follow:

Every element must earn its place. If a box, arrow, or label doesn't add clarity, remove it. I've seen diagrams with 50 boxes trying to show everything at once. Instead, create multiple diagrams at different levels of detail.

Clear titles and labels are non-negotiable. Your diagram should be understandable without you explaining it. I test this by showing diagrams to someone unfamiliar with the project and asking them to explain it back to me. If they can't, I simplify.

Consistency in visual language is crucial. Pick a color scheme and stick to it. For example, in my C4 diagrams, I always use blue for internal services, gray for external systems, and orange for databases. This consistency means that when someone sees a blue box, they immediately know it's something we own and control.

Use arrows deliberately. Show direction of data flow, not just "these things are related." A bidirectional arrow should mean something different than a unidirectional one.

I learned this the hard way after creating a beautiful, detailed diagram that nobody understood. Now I follow the principle: start simple, add complexity only when necessary. Your first diagram should be something you could sketch on a napkin.

Here's what this looks like in practice. Let's say you're documenting a payment processing flow. Here's what happens when you ignore these guidelines:

Before: Cluttered and Confusing

This diagram is technically accurate—all these components exist. But does it help you understand the payment flow? Probably not. You're drowning in infrastructure noise. Which path does a payment actually take? What's essential vs. what's just support infrastructure?

Now, here's the same flow following the principles I just covered:

After: Clear and Purposeful

See the difference? Every element earns its place. The numbered arrows show you exactly how data flows through the system. The colors are consistent: blue for our internal services, orange for data stores, green for external systems. You could sketch this on a napkin in 30 seconds, and a new team member could understand the payment flow immediately.

The logging service, monitoring service, and config service? They're important, but they don't help explain the payment flow, so they don't belong here. If you need to document how monitoring works, create a separate diagram for that.

The Art of Presentation

Presenting effectively is crucial, whether in a formal setting or an informal team meeting. I've seen great ideas die because they were poorly presented, and mediocre ideas gain traction because they were presented well. Your technical skills got you to senior, but your presentation skills will determine how far you go beyond that.

Here's something I wish someone had taught me earlier: know your audience and format before you build your presentation. A live presentation where you're persuading stakeholders needs minimal slides and compelling visuals—you are the presentation, and your slides just support you. An RFC or architecture decision record that people will read asynchronously needs comprehensive detail and full context, because you won't be there to explain it.

The worst mistake? Creating a dense document and trying to present it live, or creating a sparse slide deck and sending it to people expecting them to understand it without you. Match the format to the medium, and you'll save yourself hours of rework.

Leadership: Influence Over Authority

Here's something that surprised me when I became a senior: leadership in tech isn't about wielding authority; it's about inspiring and guiding your team. You don't have direct reports (unless you transition to management), but you're expected to lead. This is what we call "influence without authority," and it's one of the most important skills you'll develop.

Leading by Example

This sounds cliché, but it's true: demonstrate the behaviors and practices you want to see in your team. Leading by example builds trust and respect faster than any amount of talking.

For instance, if you advocate for clean code, ensure your contributions to the codebase reflect those principles. I learned this when I was pushing my team to write better tests. I realized that some of my recent PRs had skimped on test coverage because I was rushing. How could I expect them to prioritize testing if I wasn't? So I made a point of writing comprehensive tests, adding thoughtful comments explaining my testing strategy, and during code reviews, I'd reference my own PRs as examples. The shift in team behavior was noticeable within weeks.

If continuous learning is a value, share resources and lead knowledge-sharing sessions. I started a bi-weekly "Tech Talk Tuesday" where anyone could present something they learned—a new tool, a design pattern, a debugging technique. I made sure to present first to set the tone and show it was okay to present on simple topics or to say "I don't fully understand this yet, but here's what I've learned so far."

Another true test of leadership is how you handle failure. When a production incident happens, it's easy to point fingers. But as a Senior Engineer, I learned to lead blameless post-mortems. Instead of asking "Who broke this?", I asked "How did our system allow this to happen?" and "What information were we missing?" By shifting the focus from blame to process improvement, you don't just fix the bug—you build psychological safety for the whole team. That's leadership.

Here's the key: your team is watching you. If you say documentation is important but never update the docs, they won't either. If you say work-life balance matters but you're sending Slack messages at midnight, that's the culture you're creating. Lead by example, not by decree.

Pushing Boundaries

Growth comes from stepping out of your comfort zone, and as a senior, part of your job is to push both yourself and your team to grow. Whether it's learning a new technology, leading a challenging project, or advocating for a controversial architectural decision, continuous personal and professional development is key.

Don't shy away from opportunities that stretch your abilities—embrace them as a chance to grow. When my manager asked if I wanted to lead the migration from our monolith to microservices, my first thought was "I've never done this at this scale before." My second thought was "This is exactly why I should say yes." That project pushed me harder than anything in my career, and I learned more in those six months than in the previous two years.

But here's the thing: pushing boundaries doesn't mean being reckless. It means calculated risks. It means doing your homework, building proof of concepts, getting feedback from trusted peers, and then going for it. Some of the best innovations I've seen came from engineers who said, "I know this isn't how we've always done it, but what if we tried..."

Encourage your teammates to do the same. When a mid-level engineer proposes something ambitious, instead of listing all the reasons it might fail, ask them "What would you need to make this work?" and help them get there.

Speaking Business

Understanding and speaking the language of business is crucial, and this is where many technical folks struggle. You need to master negotiation, understand risk, and use business terminology to align technical solutions with business objectives.

Here's what I mean: when proposing a technical initiative, frame it in terms of business benefits—how it will drive revenue, reduce costs, or improve customer satisfaction. Don't just say "We need to refactor this service." Instead, say "Refactoring this service will reduce our cloud costs by 30% and cut our time to ship new features from two weeks to two days, which means we can respond to customer requests faster than our competitors."

Learn to speak in terms of ROI (Return on Investment), TCO (Total Cost of Ownership), and OKRs (Objectives and Key Results). When you're discussing technical debt, frame it as risk: "This legacy system represents significant business risk. If it fails, we lose $50K per hour of downtime. Modernizing it is an investment in business continuity."

I literally treat it like an equation: (Current Pain $$ + Risk $$) > (Migration Cost $$) = Green Light. If I can't quantify the 'Current Pain' in dollars or time, I know I'm not ready to pitch it to leadership.

I'll be honest: this felt uncomfortable at first. I became an engineer because I loved code, not because I wanted to think about quarterly revenue targets. But here's the reality: the work you do has to serve business goals. The better you are at connecting your technical work to business outcomes, the more autonomy you'll have, the more resources you'll get, and the more impact you'll make.

Some practical ways to develop this skill: sit in on product planning meetings, read your company's quarterly reports, talk to your product managers about what customers are asking for, and most importantly, ask "why" about business decisions until you understand the reasoning.

Keep Growing, Keep Leading

Your role as a Senior Engineer is complex and rewarding. The technical skills got you here, but these soft skills—communication, presentation, and leadership—will determine where you go next. By mastering these skills, you'll elevate not only your career but also those around you.

Remember, every staff engineer, every principal engineer, every tech lead you admire got there not just because they were brilliant coders, but because they could communicate their brilliance, lead their teams, and create impact beyond their individual contributions.

Stay curious, stay communicative, and keep leading the way. You've got this ❤️

Communication is the leverage that multiplies your technical impact. Want to level up your leadership? Let's tackle your challenges together.