I was a "10x Engineer" but a 1x Leader: Why I stopped optimizing code to save my career

#management #softskills #leadership #career

The "Perfect" Code Trap

For the first 5 years of my career, I was deep in the trenches. I was a C++ desktop client developer.

I lived for the optimizations. I obsessed over shaving off 100ms of latency, fixing obscure crash bugs, and ensuring modularity was perfect. To me, "Good Engineering" meant Clean Code.

Then, I was promoted to Tech Lead. And I took that same OCD with me.

The Crash

I became the bottleneck.

I didn't delegate because "they won't do it as well as me."

I fought with my manager over "Scalability" for a product that was underperforming and barely had users and revenue.

I burned bridges with Product Managers because I viewed their feature requests as "ruining my architecture."

I was winning the Code Reviews, but I was losing the Room.

The View from the "Dark Side"

Eventually, I moved into Product Management (PM).

That is when the reality hit me like a truck.

Sitting on the other side of the table, I watched engineers make the exact same mistakes I used to make. I saw brilliant Tech Leads arguing for a refactor while the VP of Sales was trying to explain that we would lose a major client if we missed the deadline.

I realized I had spent years shouting in an echo chamber. No one liked working with me as an engineer. Not because my code was bad, but because I was politically illiterate.

The Revelation: Translation Layers

I realized that to influence someone, you have to speak their language, not yours.

To a CPU: You speak in pointers and memory allocation.

To a VP: You speak in Risk and Revenue.

If you say: "We can't do this, the code is messy." ->
They hear: "I am lazy."
If you say: "We can do this, but it increases the risk of a crash by 20% during the demo." ->
They hear: "A business trade-off I need to decide on."

The 6-Month Experiment

A while ago, a talented Senior Engineer asked me for feedback. He was crushing his tickets, but he wasn't getting promoted.

I gave him my "2 cents" from the Dark Side: Stop optimizing for the compiler, and start optimizing for the stakeholder.

We practiced how to say "No" without being negative. We practiced how to negotiate scope. Six months later, he got the promotion. He thanked me not for technical advice, but for teaching him how to play the game.

Practice, Don't Just Read

I realized most engineers learn this the hard way—by getting rejected or fired.

So, I built a tool to fix this. I created a Text-Based Simulator that acts like a "Sandbox" for difficult conversations.

It puts you in a room with "Gary" (a pushy stakeholder), and you have to navigate the conversation without destroying your team's morale or your political capital.

It runs in the browser (Built with Next JS).

You can try the first scenario ("The Backchanneling VP") here:
Tech lead simulator

I’d love to know:
Does the dialogue feel real to you?
Or am I still too traumatized by my own past? 😅