The original title is "The smartest engineers I know are afraid to decide"

Short summary

Smart engineers often struggle most with decision-making because their ability to see every failure mode makes every option feel risky. The article argues that most technical choices matter far less than the deliberation suggests, and the cost of indecision — delayed shipping, burned energy, no learning — almost always exceeds the cost of a wrong decision. Engineers who grow into leadership are those who make calls, own mistakes, and fix them.

• •Smart engineers' ability to enumerate failure modes creates analysis paralysis
• •Most technical decisions are reversible and matter less than deliberation suggests
• •Indecision is costlier than wrong decisions because it produces no learning

Generated with AI, which can make mistakes.