To get executive buy-in for technical debt work, visually demonstrate how it blocks high-value future features. Present it as a choice: we can do this necessary refactor now, or we forfeit the ability to build the things that will make us money later.
Related Insights
The most difficult engineering tasks aren't flashy UI features, but backend architectural changes. Refactoring a database schema to be more flexible is invisible to users but is crucial for long-term development speed and product scalability. Prioritizing this "boring" work is a key strategic decision.
Wiz's product team, trained at Microsoft, avoids building features that only solve for today's customer but break with tomorrow's enterprise giant. This 'infinite scale' mindset isn't about slowing down; it's about making conscious architectural choices that prevent time-consuming and costly refactoring later on.
To get buy-in for developer experience initiatives, don't use generic metrics. First, identify leadership's primary concerns—be it market share, profit margin, or velocity. Then, frame your measurements and impact using that specific language to ensure your work resonates.
Stakeholders will ask "so what?" if you only talk about developer efficiency. This is a weak argument that can get your funding cut. Instead, connect your platform's work directly to downstream business metrics like customer retention or product uptake that your developer-users are targeting.
To get product management buy-in for technical initiatives like refactoring or scaling, engineering leadership is responsible for translating the work into clear business or customer value. Instead of just stating the technical need, explain how it enables faster feature development or access to a larger customer base.
When knowingly incurring tech debt to meet a deadline, trust between product and engineering is key. Don't just hope to fix it later; establish a formal agreement for an 'N+1 fast follow-up' release. This ensures time is explicitly scheduled to address the shortcuts taken.
To prevent engineers from focusing internally on technical purity (e.g., unnecessary refactoring), leaders must consistently frame all work in terms of its value to the customer. Even tech debt should be justified by its external impact, such as improving security or enabling future features.
To sell large transformation projects, present the ambitious "North Star" goal but break it into sequential stages. Critically, Stage 1 must deliver tangible business value on its own. This approach wins over skeptics by providing an early return on investment, securing the momentum and buy-in needed for subsequent stages.
To capture an executive's attention, connect operational-level problems to their strategic business impact. A slow development cycle isn't just a process issue; explain how it directly causes delayed time-to-market, higher costs, and lost market share to competitors, which are the metrics an economic buyer truly cares about.
When stakeholders want to ship a high-fidelity prototype immediately, counter by explaining the required effort using numbers. Frame the work in terms of scale (e.g., "This must support 200 products, each requiring a week of testing") to manage expectations and justify proper engineering.