Engineering Leadership: Balancing Perfection and Execution

Photo credit: Mike Bird

One of the biggest challenges we face as engineering leaders is knowing when to stop engineering and start delivering. While our instincts push us to iterate and refine, our responsibility as leaders is to ensure that our teams deliver on time, within budget, and in alignment with business objectives.

Avoiding the Perfection Trap

One of the key lessons I have learnt in my career is that perfection is the enemy of progress. As engineers, we’re trained to identify flaws, anticipate failures, and continuously improve. Take me as an example. The "OCD" in me used to be borderline debilitating. Be it power point presentations, my own designs or my team's designs. It took me years to eventually realize most companies (not you Apple) are not looking for Mona Lisa.

Successful products are not necessarily those that are engineered to their theoretical maximum potential—they are the ones that make it to market when they are needed.

Shifting from Perfection to Execution

Here are a few key principles to help balance engineering instincts with execution:

🎯Define Clear Goals and Constraints – Every project needs a well-defined scope. By establishing success criteria early—balancing performance, cost, and schedule—we ensure the team remains focused on delivering results rather than chasing endless refinements.

💪Empower Engineers to Own the Process – Instead of micromanaging technical decisions, I encourage my team to take ownership. My role is to provide guidance, remove roadblocks, and ensure alignment with our broader objectives.

👍Know When to Say ‘Good Enough’ – One of the toughest but most crucial lessons is understanding when a design is ready. We need to prioritize launching a functional, reliable product on time over endlessly iterating for marginal gains.

⚖️Balance Risk and Innovation – Leadership is about making trade-offs—every hour, every day of the year. While innovation is essential, there are times when completion and execution must take precedence. Challenge yourself to differentiate between must-have iterations and nice-to-have features.

Leading with a Bigger Picture in Mind

Great engineers become awesome leaders when they learn to see beyond the technical details. Instead of focusing solely on solving engineering challenges, think about customer needs, business impact, and long-term strategy. Our job is not just to build the best product—it’s to build a successful business around that product.

As engineering leaders, we must guide our teams to strike the right balance between technical excellence and business execution. By shifting our mindset from perfection to delivery, we ensure that our hard work makes a real impact in the world. The goal is not just to engineer great solutions—it’s to bring them to life.

Isn't that what every engineer wants to do?