Some Devs Ship Features. Others Shape Products—Coach Engineers to Solve Problems.

At first, I had this teammate who was always on time. You know the type—give him a feature ticket, and you get back a working solution fast. Trouble was, those outputs didn’t always change much for the user or the team.

He was reliable, but not aligned. He kept solving what was asked, when what we really needed was to coach engineers to solve problems that actually mattered. Looking back, I’ll admit I didn’t catch the real problem right away. It wasn’t bad engineering—it was just following the script a little too closely. His approach was to finish, not to dig for what would actually matter once shipped.

So I worked to coach engineers to solve problems by helping him spend as much time asking better engineering questions as he did writing clean code. Over time, we set new ground rules. Don’t start coding until you’ve talked through the “why” with someone who knows the need. Check your assumptions. Loop back before you ship. It took practice. There were moments where it felt slow, even awkward—especially when the team was used to “just get it done” mode. But the shift paid off; he started surfacing blind spots, pushing back on unclear specs, and even landing small changes with outsized impact. What mattered most was not just fixing his code, but helping him see that inquiry is the real engine of good work.

Now, if you’re reading and thinking this all sounds nice, but you’re worried it’ll slow down delivery or spark friction with stakeholders—you’re not alone. These doubts come up every time.

Make Space for Questions—and Let Uncertainty Breathe

Before diving into any work, I started introducing what I now call a structured pre-work pause. It’s simple. Instead of racing straight to an elegant solution, we stop and probe. Just a minute to ask questions like, “What’s missing?” or “Are we solving the real blocker, or just the visible one?” This little ritual has saved us countless hours, because it pushes gaps and root causes into the light—before any code gets touched.

Try it. Next time you pick up a ticket, pause and ask the kinds of prompts that help engineers ask better questions, like, “What’s the downstream impact if we build exactly what’s written here?” Or, “Who relies on this feature after it ships?” The power isn’t just in getting answers—it’s in seeing where you might not have enough.

Here’s what I learned about building an outcome-first engineering culture. Teams that see uncertainty as fair ground for conversation have markedly higher psychological safety and effectiveness (beta = 0.55, f² = 0.39, p<0.001). I started modeling language like “I’ll have to look into that,” and stopped pretending I already knew everything. Not knowing wasn’t a failure. It was a doorway to better work and stronger trust.

Early on, I noticed my teammate was trying so hard to be helpful that he was hesitant to slow down or question what was asked. Naming that impulse—aiming to be helpful more than right—opened the door for him to challenge requests and dig into outcomes.

The reason we push inquiry is simple. It collapses the timeline between misunderstanding and alignment. Early discovery always beats late fixes. When you ask good questions at the outset, you shrink rework down to almost nothing. That’s not just theory—it’s years of projects where a five-minute pause saved us weeks of patching things nobody needed. The earlier you catch the real need, the faster you hit the real target.

Engineering Work Should Land With Real Outcomes, Not Just Closed Tickets

At first, it felt overly formal to assign a real business contact to every ticket, but that direct loop is how you develop outcome-driven engineers. Instead of guessing at intent, a developer could ping the actual stakeholder with, “Does this really solve your pain point?” Having someone tied directly to the business context made our questions faster, reduced translation loss, and cut out endless loops of back-and-forth clarifications.

Don’t just talk to the PM and call it a day—cultivate a product mindset for engineers. Reach out to the person who’s going to use the feature, or the one whose workflow is about to change. If you see your code from the beneficiary’s perspective, you start to solve for impact instead of just implementation.

I always tie shipping to a loop-back check—often a one-minute perspective bias check. After deploying, we ask—did it deliver the outcome? Not “did it deploy cleanly,” but “did it actually move the numbers, unblock the user, or cut wasted time?” Keeping this loop simple but direct makes it easy for engineers to see their work in the real-world context, rather than in a vacuum.

Once work went live, you could feel the difference. Over time, as positive outcomes stacked up, the team’s confidence in each other grew. The trust between engineering and business partners started to shift too.

That chunk of code I mentioned earlier—if I’m honest, I still catch myself wanting to just “ship and move on,” even knowing what happens next. Changing habits isn’t a single switch. It leaks into the day-to-day and stays messy.

It’s like cooking strictly from a recipe versus tasting as you go. Following directions might get you a meal, but checking along the way is what makes it good. You don’t need chef-level intuition—just the willingness to test and adjust before serving.

Make Inquiry Visible—Reward It So It Sticks

Whenever I spotted a teammate pausing to challenge a shaky premise, or boiling down a bloated request into something workable, or suggesting a route that chopped out needless steps, I made sure to say it out loud because that’s how you build problem-solving engineering teams. I’d drop a “good catch” in standup, or call out in chat, “That question saved us a sprint.” These moments mattered far more than technical flourish or raw speed. They helped reset what we defined as good engineering. Now, when someone asks, “Hang on—what’s the user’s real headache here?” that’s not resistance; it’s exactly the job. And it actually turns out that framing cuts down the back-and-forth, tightening our loops and giving the whole team a boost.

Those shoutouts started small, but over time they did all the heavy lifting. The team began to measure helpfulness not by quick responses, but by deeper, sharper questions—the kind that kept us aimed at outcomes instead of outputs.

It’s simple. When you show that curiosity is safe, expected, and respected, you build a team that solves real problems. Compliance only gets you closed tickets. Inquiry gets you impact.

Make Space for Doubt—and Show the Payoff

I won’t pretend managers and stakeholders don’t worry about this shift. Letting engineers slow down to ask questions can look like a threat to velocity or an invitation for pushback. If you’ve ever flinched at a “Wait, are we sure?” during standup, I’ve been there. But here’s the reframing: questioning isn’t resistance—it’s how you catch mistakes before they hit production. Every round of inquiry cuts risk upfront and saves time chasing fixes later.

You can run systematic project kickoffs with a simple playbook. Step one. Before anyone gets deep into the ticket, call a “pre-work pause.” Ask the team, “What’s missing from this brief? Who’s the actual user?” Don’t settle for specs alone—equip your devs with questions like, “Is this solving the root issue?” or “What’s the downstream impact if we ship exactly as written?” Add a business contact to every change, even if it’s just a ping in Slack, so devs can get real context without bottlenecks.

Push for loops to close after launch—check in, “Did this land for you? Anything off?” The process isn’t heavy. It just adds moments for honest checks where they count. Before, during, and after you build. Building this habit takes intention, but it’s a set of pivots any team can start, no matter the delivery pressure.

This is the shift. Some devs ship features. Others shape products. You get to decide which side your team lands on.