Akatama's Slice of the Internet

Why Great Engineers Always Take the Extra Step

By Jimmy Lindsey

When we’re new to a job or a line of work, it’s easy to just do exactly what’s asked. If your manager gives you a task, you complete that task. If you’re researching something, you find only what you need right now.

But great engineers don’t stop there. They take the extra step. They think about what their work means, who it’s for, and how it could be made more useful.

Scenario 1: Finding Issues in APIs Under Load

Let's say that your boss asks you to run an API load test and then gather metrics to check for latency issues. You'll report your findings to the VP of Technology, the API team's manager, as well as the SRE and DevOps teams.

Sure, you could just run the test once and hand over the numbers, but that doesn't help anyone understand the state of the system. So here's what you do instead:

1. Run a few tests with a lighter load, ideally when there are no latency issues.
2. Run a few tests with a heavier load.
3. Gather and compare the results.
4. Write a report, with the most significant metrics at the very top (such as transactions per second or any specific APIs that have latency problems).
5. Include your suggestion for improving the latency, even if it is just a hypothesis (e.g. "The GetUser endpoint might benefit from better caching.").
6. Attach the full dataset for anyone who wants to dig deeper.

Now you’ve gone beyond “just running a test.” You’ve created something useful. Your report gives leadership quick clarity, offers engineers a starting point for solutions, and makes it easy for everyone to trust your work.

Taking the extra step isn’t about overworking yourself. It’s about anticipating what people will actually need from your work. A VP doesn’t want a wall of numbers, they want insight. Engineers don’t want vague conclusions, they want data. You’ve bridged that gap.

Scenario 2: Building Your Own Blog From Scratch

Imagine you’re building your own website and blog using Django. You’re following a tutorial because you’re still learning the framework and want to get things right.

As you follow along, you notice a few things that don't fit your needs:

• It handles the body of the blog post in plain text, so you can't format it.
• It includes a full commenting system, which you think is overkill for a simple personal website.

You could just follow the tutorial and fix things later. But instead, you pause and think ahead.

You decide to skip the commenting system and spend that time figuring out how to store Markdown-formatted text in Django’s ORM. That one adjustment saves you hours and gives you a cleaner, simpler blog that fits what you actually want.

If you had followed the tutorial blindly, you might have built an authentication system, moderation tools, and even spam filters you didn't need. By taking a step back and thinking a step forward, you avoided unnecessary work and built something better. That’s the real advantage of thinking ahead: it prevents wasted effort and creates space for more meaningful work.

Conclusion

Taking the extra step isn’t about doing more work; it’s about doing the right work. It’s the difference between checking a box and creating something that actually helps others move forward.

Taking the extra step doesn’t just make your work better, it also builds trust. Your manager starts to rely on your judgment. Your teammates start to see you as someone who brings clarity instead of just output. Over time, people start to rely on you not just to execute, but to think ahead.

These small extra steps compound. They turn into habits that shape how you think and communicate. That’s how good engineers become great.