As an engineer, I’d rather be called stupid than stay silent

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A new message pops up in our Incident Management channel – A part of one product feature isn’t working.

Adrenaline kicks in. The developers maintaining the affected feature jump into the thread, assessing the impact and what’s needed to fix it. All eyes are on the thread. Pressure mounts. The clock is ticking – we need to notify clients ASAP. We must understand the impact.

Finally, a message comes through:

Our photon phasers aren’t working due to an issue on our flux capacitor module in charge of stabilizing the ion flow!

At this point, you’re probably thinking – what on earth is the affected product, and what exactly does this company do?!

Am I missing something, or will I just look stupid if I don’t get what we’re talking about?

Feeling stupid? You are not alone!

Obviously, the example I gave is a gross exaggeration , but it’s a good representation of situations we encounter in our daily work.

Our photon phasers are just fine, and the ion flow is fully stable – mostly because they don’t exist in our company. Yet we often find ourselves in situations where someone describes a problem that sounds exactly like this: What would my colleagues think of me if I don’t have an answer to a question?

For those familiar with the technology, it’s clear what happened. They just shrug and say, ‘Oh well, it looks like our recent adjustments to the flux capacitor aren’t working in this scenario—we’ll fix it immediately.‘

And here I am, pondering the meaning of life of our photon phasers in the OMGaaS stack while our clients are still uninformed!

I’d love to ask the devs to translate this from Star Trek language to plain English, but I should probably already know that. If I ask, they’ll think I’m stupid.

What should I do?

I just have to deal with it, right?

I started my career at Infobip as a Customer Support Engineer, requiring a basic technical understanding of our platform and product stack.

It was a jack-of-all-trades role, often leading to ‘I don’t want to seem stupid by asking an obvious question’ moments, especially with developers, because I lacked the technical depth to fully understand our platform.

As time passed, I realized I couldn’t know everything, especially on a platform of this scale.

My knowledge and confidence grew ; I understood our product stack better and could troubleshoot basic issues, but I still wasn’t comfortable with the broader technical picture of our platform.

Though confident in troubleshooting business and client errors, I couldn’t grasp our technical infrastructure or handle the myriad of photon phasers in complex issues. I always felt stupid.

So, it was time to ask myself…

Am I actually this clueless?

I realized I had to step up my game and throw myself into the fire to turn dev-talk into something I could understand and explain. That way, I’d know for sure: either I really was stupid, or I just needed to change my approach.

So, the decision was made: I’m going to slay this hydra (or die trying). But how?

There are plenty of online courses for specific areas (cloud, networking, VMs, programming, etc.), but I didn’t have a set curriculum. If I could create one, it would mean I already had some knowledge. Meanwhile, I had access to a massive untapped well of knowledge…

Proud to be ‘stupid’!

My job involved daily interactions with developers on various matters, from notifying clients about platform incidents to troubleshooting isolated platform issues. This allowed me to ask questions.

It sounds like a groundbreaking revelation – after all this time, I could finally ask the ‘stupid’ questions! But in reality, the opportunity was always there; I was just too afraid of being perceived as stupid.

But now, the mask was off! I felt stupid anyway, so there was nothing to lose by asking those questions. Worst case scenario – I really am stupid. Might as well embrace it!

Hold on, I actually get this…

After tons of questions like ‘What does this actually mean?’ or ‘Could you explain this in simple terms?’, I began piecing together a new world of knowledge that helped me understand the complex world of tech.

Yet, I had only scratched the surface, but at least I knew I wasn’t stupid. Not because I’m some hidden genius tackling customer complaints but simply because I learned that when you dare to ask questions, people usually answer them.

Data centers became physical spaces with racks of hosts running VMs, powering the magic our clients experienced as a service or product. In this world, photon phasers transformed into VMs, and flux capacitors became hosts. From this simple sentence, you can see how this entire world looked to me:

What happens if you don’t let yourself feel vulnerable?

It’s time to ask: what happens if you let yourself seem stupid? Sure, no one wants to reveal their gaps in knowledge, but staying silent comes with its price.

My initial example was an incident for a reason – the consequences of staying silent are clear. If no one asks, ‘How is the photon phaser affecting clients?’ or ‘Can you explain this?’ we can’t connect the issue to client impact, identify the right people to resolve it, or see the bigger picture. This delays client notifications and prolongs the incident.

To be fair, incidents aren’t the time to ask for a programming course – we don’t need to know every line of code.

However, during an incident, everyone should know their role and exactly what information they need to do their part.

Of course, incidents aren’t the only time this happens. You might be working on a task and unsure how to meet expectations. After searching through endless documentation, you still can’t find the crucial info. Not asking coworkers could result in suboptimal work , and instead of seeming stupid, you’ll create problems for anyone relying on your output.

The same goes for meetings. Have you ever been in a situation where someone goes on about something no one understands, but everyone thinks, ‘It’s not my job to ask’ or ‘Someone else will ask what this is about’? Taking the risk to ask clears up confusion for everyone and moves the conversation toward a solution rather than leaving everyone in awkward silence.

Make asking questions core to your culture – and nurture it!

How can we avoid these consequences? While everyone can improve how they ask questions and handle insecurities, fostering a culture of curiosity isn’t easy. It depends on your team and organization, but there are ways to promote this mindset in any situation.

• Be the one who asks the ‘stupid’ questions

Anyone can do this. By asking ‘stupid’ questions, you show there are no downsides and nothing to fear. It might not make everyone jump in right away, but over time, it builds confidence to speak up during uncertainty.

• Shift from blame to education

A blameless culture helps people feel comfortable asking questions. Instead of blaming, educate – each question reveals areas for improvement, from onboarding to communication.

• Trust the people around you

Putting yourself at risk of looking stupid also shows trust in your coworkers: you trust them not to judge you and to help in tough situations.

Asking questions can take you further in your career

Embracing the ‘stupidity’ mindset helped me accumulate the knowledge and experience needed to transition into a new role – Reliability Operations Engineer.

Our team, with limited technical knowledge, had to manage complex concepts and coordinate communication during critical times. While we embraced the ‘stupidity’ mindset individually, we now faced the challenge of adopting it as a team. But we had support from our manager and mentors, who led by example, and we felt confident in asking questions.

But, does it mean we could do literally whatever we wanted without consequences? No.

All actions have consequences, but asking questions should lead to shared knowledge and personal growth. As a ’70s US newspaper quote puts it: ‘There’s no such thing as a stupid question if it’s sincere. Better to ask and risk looking stupid than to make a foolish mistake.’

Give yourself permission to feel clueless

There’s nothing wrong with that. In everyday life, people are comfortable asking questions without fearing consequences – so why should work be any different? No one knows everything, meaning everyone’s ‘stupid’ at some level.

Remember, asking questions helps you accumulate knowledge, turning unknowns into understanding while also building self-confidence. On an organizational level, it fosters better knowledge sharing and collaboration.

Plus, asking a ‘stupid’ question won’t get you fired (unless it will, blink twice if you need help).

So, next time you face photon phasers, ask yourself: would you rather be stupid or silent?

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