The Business Side of Engineering: Thinking Beyond Code

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Welcome to another week, another opportunity to become a great DevOps and Software Engineer

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A while back, I was working on what I thought was my best piece of engineering.

I had built a complex deployment pipeline, automated half the manual steps my team used to struggle with, and made it run lightning fast.

I was proud.

But when I demoed it, my manager asked a simple question:

I stumbled.

I talked about YAML, Docker images, caching layers…
But I didn’t explain how it reduced costs, improved delivery time, or made life easier for other teams.

And that’s when I realized:
Code is important. But the business outcome is what really matters.

Why Engineers Get Stuck in the “Code Bubble”

We love solving technical puzzles.
But sometimes, we forget: our code only matters if it moves the business forward.

That’s why two engineers with the same coding skill can have very different careers:

• One stays “just a developer.”

• The other becomes a trusted partner, a senior, a leader.

The difference isn’t technical skill. It’s perspective.

Thinking Beyond Code Means Asking Different Questions

Instead of:

• “Can I make this faster?”
  Ask: “Will this speed save the team or the business time/money?”

Instead of:

• “Can I use this new tool?”
  Ask: “Does this tool solve our actual problem better than what we already have?”

Instead of:

• “Can I build this feature?”
  Ask: “How does this feature impact users or revenue?”

A Lesson From an Interview

In one DevOps interview, I was asked:

I started with the technical details-how I re-architected a pipeline, cut build times, and added caching.

But then I added something new:

• Reduced deploy times from 20 minutes to 5 → freed engineers to ship features faster.

• Fewer broken builds → less downtime for QA.

• Faster feedback loop → product experiments reached customers quicker.

The interviewer’s face lit up. Not because of the code — but because I connected it to business value.

That was the difference.

How to Practice Thinking Like This

You don’t need an MBA. You just need to shift perspective:

1. Link Every Task to an Outcome
   Next time you finish work, ask: Who benefits from this? How?

2. Speak in Metrics, Not Just Tools
   Instead of saying “I built a CI/CD pipeline,” say “I reduced deploy time by 70%.”

3. Pay Attention to Stakeholders
   Product, QA, ops, business teams — how does your work make their work easier?

This Week’s Challenge

hink of one project you’ve done in the past.
Rewrite its description in “business language”:

• Problem → Solution → Outcome

For example:
“I built a monitoring script” →
“I reduced production outages by 30% by building a monitoring script that alerted us before failures.”

Do this consistently, and you’ll stop being “the person who writes code” — and start being “the engineer who drives results.”

Final Thoughts

The business doesn’t pay for clean code.
It pays for solutions that move the needle.

Learn to connect your code to business outcomes, and you’ll separate yourself from the crowd.

Coming up next week:

How to Pick Side Projects That Actually Get You Hired — why “build a to-do app” isn’t the answer, and how to choose projects that showcase your skills the right way.

If you’re looking for a supportive community to help you grow faster, check out MentorAura.
We’re building the next generation of real-world engineers. And we’d love to have you with us.