choong pw

As 2024 draws to a close and we inch closer to 2025, I find myself in a reflective mood, looking back at the year and pondering the concept of “valuable work,” especially in the context of software engineers. This topic has been on my mind a lot this year, sparked by a podcast I listened to—I can’t recall which one, but it had a profound impact on my thought process.

One of the key takeaways is that it’s surprisingly difficult to define what truly constitutes valuable work. It’s not always the most complex or time-consuming tasks that have the biggest impact. In fact, sometimes the opposite is true. We often fall into the trap of equating “hard work” with “valuable work,” but they are not synonymous.

Think about it: spending days debugging a particularly nasty memory leak might feel incredibly challenging and consuming. And it is important work. But is it valuable in the grand scheme of things? Perhaps. But perhaps not as valuable as spending a few hours refactoring a critical piece of code that improves performance for all users by 20%. The debugging was hard, the refactor was comparatively straightforward, but the impact of the latter was far greater.

Backstory

This year has been particularly challenging for our company. We’ve been in “battle mode” for over a year and a half now. Frankly, it’s not been a fun environment. The team is shrinking, and all the perks we used to have are gone, despite all the cost improvements we’ve made. It’s been a real struggle to create the next “big” apps that generate revenue. We’ve adopted different strategies along the way, trying to find what will finally get the flywheel spinning.

The focus has shifted from cost-cutting measures to revenue generation—that’s where upper management sees the value. Company leaders have shifted away from our previous bottom-up, innovative approach to a more fact-driven one—we call it CoE (Center of Excellence)—prioritizing customer buy-in over gut-driven ideas.

The change

To give credit where it’s due, we believe this approach makes it easier to validate ideas. As a result, engineers now have to prioritize field engineering (working more closely with customers) over coding all day. This got me thinking: is this field work more valuable than building apps? From management’s perspective, I think it is, because it generates immediate, short-term revenue. It’s about seizing opportunities to package new products/solutions before going into full development. Trust me, as a manager, it’s hard to motivate engineers when the work doesn’t involve coding.

I want to applaud my team for being professional and mature in navigating this change. Hopefully, better days are ahead.

Leverage

This situation brings me to another observation: a truly effective engineer isn’t necessarily the one who tackles the hardest technical problems. They’re the ones who identify and pursue high-leverage activities. They look for opportunities where a relatively small input can generate a significant output. They prioritize high-value work that doesn’t necessarily require Herculean effort.

They focus on problem/solution thinking rather than just technical complexity. A simple example might be creating a script to automate a repetitive deployment task. It might only take a few hours to write, but it saves the team countless hours of manual work every week. This is high-leverage, high-value work. It’s not “hard” in the traditional sense, but it’s incredibly valuable.

Not there yet

We’ve only just started exploring the field engineering approach. It’s going to be a roller coaster ride balancing stakeholder demands for revenue with engineers’ need for technical challenges. Those who are working in the field need to understand the principles and vision we’ve set. This is to protect us from a situation where engineers end up doing basic customer support without creating “real” value.

Beyond identifying high-leverage opportunities, we need senior engineers who are context-aware and possess strong critical thinking skills so they can effectively communicate their vision. It’s not enough to have a great idea; you need to be able to articulate it clearly and persuasively to stakeholders. This involves not only technical expertise but also strong communication and interpersonal skills.

Next step

Looking ahead to 2025, I believe these are the qualities we should be fostering in our senior engineers: the ability to identify high-leverage opportunities, prioritize high-value work, and effectively communicate their vision. These are the skills that truly drive impact and create lasting value. It’s not about working harder; it’s about working smarter. And that, in my opinion, is the essence of valuable work.