The Pitfall of Vague Fundamentals

“Focus on the fundamentals.” If you’ve led, hired, or promoted engineers, you’ve heard this phrase tossed around more times than you can count. It finds its way into interview rubrics, performance reviews, and team meetings—used to mark the difference between good and great. The advice sounds sensible: anchor to what endures. But here’s the uncomfortable truth—what are these so-called fundamentals, really?

This ambiguity isn’t just a philosophical quibble—it has a real human cost. Too often, engineers are told to “work on fundamentals” without any concrete roadmap for what that means. Teams fall back on tradition—“Can they whiteboard a binary tree?”—instead of digging into what actually drives results in their context. At worst, this vagueness becomes a convenient cover for bias or inertia: if you can’t define what matters, it’s all too easy to favor familiarity over progress.

Let’s slow down here. One tool that’s helped me get unstuck is the ‘Criteria-Consequences Framework.’ The gist: start by making your evaluation criteria explicit, then trace out their consequences—intended and unintended—for individuals and teams. This process has a way of surfacing the hidden impacts of vague standards: undermined fairness, blocked progress, and opportunities missed.

These dangers aren’t just hypothetical. Remember the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster? Behind that tragedy was a tangle of unclear engineering standards and operational ambiguity—proof that hand-waving around “quality” can have catastrophic consequences (BP Deepwater Horizon disaster for further context). It’s a sobering reminder that comprehensive quality control, clear safety protocols, and real commitment to risk management aren’t just best practices—they’re essential.

First Principles Thinking: A Better Lens

So how do we move past platitudes that comfort more than clarify? This is where first principles thinking enters the picture—a mindset borrowed from physics but powerfully relevant to engineering leadership.

First principles thinking is all about peeling back the layers. Instead of relying on inherited wisdom (“every good engineer knows algorithms”), you break problems down until you hit bedrock—the fundamental truths (definition of first principles thinking). When you separate facts from assumptions, you can reconstruct knowledge and design solutions that truly fit your context (more on first principles mental models).

Elon Musk summed it up well: “We get through life by reasoning by analogy, copying what others do with slight variations. But when you want to do something new, you have to apply the first principles approach.”

Look at SpaceX for a real-world example. By questioning every assumption about rocket manufacturing—from material costs to design constraints—they achieved breakthroughs like reusable rockets and massive cost reductions. Those leaps weren’t accidents; they happened because the team rebuilt their processes around fundamental truths instead of industry habits.

Applied to evaluation, first principles thinking is about refusing to accept easy proxies or tradition at face value. Instead of asking if someone “knows Kubernetes,” you dig into the core problems your engineers face. What irreducible skills or behaviors actually move the needle on your team? Maybe it’s breaking down complex requirements, balancing performance with maintainability, or communicating clearly under pressure.

And yes, this approach delivers real results. In rocket manufacturing, SpaceX discovered raw material costs were only 2–3% of total expenses—a realization that allowed them to rewrite the rules for production and drive efficiency (explore more on first principles in action).

This isn’t just theory—it’s pragmatic leadership. It gives you a way to design interviews, promotions, and development plans that reflect what actually matters for success right now.

Redefining Fundamentals for Your Organization

If “fundamentals” can mean anything, it risks meaning nothing at all. To make this concept useful—and fair—engineering leaders have to get hands-on about defining what counts within their own context.

Start by bringing together your leadership team or core engineers and asking some uncomfortable questions:

• What problems do our engineers actually solve each day?
• What knowledge and behaviors consistently predict success here?
• Where have we implicitly deprioritized certain skills or values, without ever saying so?

It’s normal to feel some resistance in these conversations. In my experience, this is where things get real—teams often discover that their stated priorities (“system design expertise”) don’t quite match what they really reward (“shipping features fast,” for instance). The value is in surfacing those hidden gaps and making them explicit.

But don’t treat this as a one-off brainstorm. Make it a structured process:

1. List key engineering challenges: Are you building new systems from scratch? Scaling ancient codebases? Navigating regulatory landmines?
2. Identify result-driving behaviors: Is deep technical depth the differentiator? Or is it empathy across teams? Creative problem-solving? Relentless curiosity?
3. Tie everything back to business goals: Does your company prize speed above all? Reliability? Something else entirely?

Don’t skip this step—it seems subtle, but it’s powerful. The Job-to-be-Done mental model can help: focus on the actual outcomes your organization needs engineers to deliver—not just traditional skillsets or backgrounds. That’s how you avoid inheriting outdated norms.

Once you’ve mapped out your real priorities, use them as your north star for everything talent-related—from hiring rubrics to performance reviews. This alignment increases fairness and gives engineers confidence that growth is measured by real impact—not guesswork or tradition.

For leaders looking to go beyond surface-level fixes, consider how constraint-driven leadership unlocks creativity and helps teams turn limitations into powerful engines for success.

Operationalizing Clarity: Write It Down

Defining what matters is one thing; making it stick is another. That requires documentation—arguably the most underrated tool in an engineering leader’s kit.

Writing forces clarity. Drafting out what “strong fundamentals” look like at your company—whether that’s in job descriptions, promotion rubrics, or onboarding docs—turns fuzzy instincts into observable behaviors. Suddenly, everyone knows what’s expected—and why.

Why does this matter so much?

• Alignment: Written definitions get every stakeholder—interviewers, managers, engineers—rowing in the same direction.
• Visibility: Explicit criteria make decisions feel less arbitrary and more fair.
• Growth: Engineers can aim their development efforts at genuine needs instead of guessing what matters next.

In my own work, I’ve seen how easy it is for alignment to drift if you leave expectations unwritten. Keep these documents fresh by reviewing them as a group after major projects or organizational shifts. That collective reflection keeps standards current—and stops the slow creep back into ambiguity.

One tip that’s become non-negotiable for me: hyperlink everything in internal docs. Embedding links improves navigability and ensures no one loses sight of vital context.

For additional insights into why communication skills are critical for engineering impact—not just technical mastery—explore why writing defines engineering impact.

Don’t wait for perfection before sharing a draft—even a rough version breaks inertia and invites feedback. Over time, these documents evolve into living artifacts—refined as your organization grows and learns.

Navigating Evaluation: For Leaders and Engineers

Clarity isn’t a one-way street. As leaders, we’re responsible for surfacing our own assumptions and making them explicit—but those being evaluated also play a crucial role in bridging any gaps between intention and perception.

For evaluators:

• When giving feedback like “work on fundamentals,” clarify which specific behavior or outcome was missing. Real examples make all the difference.
• Share written criteria early and often—not just during review cycles.
• Invite pushback; true clarity comes from dialogue, not top-down decrees.

For engineers being evaluated:

• If you get vague feedback, press for specifics: “Can you show me where I missed the mark? What would strong performance have looked like?”
• Reference documented rubrics; anchor your discussions there whenever possible.
• Remember: surfacing assumptions helps everyone—it’s not about confrontation but collaboration.

A great case study here is Google’s Project Oxygen. By clearly documenting the criteria for effective management, they saw measurable improvements in both team performance and satisfaction. Transparent expectations build trust—and trust accelerates growth (Project Oxygen study).

Want more practical ways leaders can shift from busyness to real impact? Explore how impactful leadership is about results rather than mere activity.

Over time, these habits change culture. Engineers know where they stand; leaders have confidence in their decisions. The old cycle of ambiguity gives way to learning and alignment instead of confusion and frustration.

Conclusion: Beyond Buzzwords—Building Real Engineering Excellence

It’s all too easy to reach for phrases like “engineering fundamentals” or “first principles” as shorthand for technical rigor or timeless skills. But unless we define—and document—what those fundamentals mean here, we risk swapping real value for tradition and comfort for excellence.

By applying first principles thinking, collaborating to surface what truly matters in our context, and operationalizing those insights through clear documentation, engineering leaders can transform an empty phrase into a powerful engine for growth, fairness, and meaningful impact.

So next time you hear “focus on the fundamentals,” pause—and ask: whose fundamentals? Are they truly aligned with what success looks like on your team today? If not, this is your moment to make a change.

Redefining fundamentals isn’t just an exercise in process—it’s an act of leadership. By choosing clarity over comfort, you create an environment where everyone has a chance to thrive, learn, and contribute meaningfully. The journey takes effort—but the rewards—a stronger team and lasting impact—are well worth it.