How to Talk to a Software Engineer Without Getting a Headache

February 2026 · The Fuzion Group

In my 25 years in this industry, I've sat on both sides of the table. I've been the engineer deep in the code, and I've been the business owner looking at a budget and a deadline, wondering why "one small change" is taking three weeks.

The "Communication Gap" between the boardroom and the server room is where projects go to die. If you're a non-technical founder or manager, here is your unofficial decoder ring for talking to your dev team (or me).

1. The "Small Change" Paradox

What you say: "Can we just add a button that does X? It should be easy, right?"

What the engineer hears: "Can we just rewire the entire foundation of the house while people are living in it?"

The Reality: In software, the "button" is easy. The logic behind the button—the data it changes, the security permissions it triggers, and the edge cases it creates—is where the work lives.

Pro-Tip: Instead of asking how "easy" it is, ask: "What are the downstream effects of adding this?"

2. The "90% Done" Myth

What the engineer says: "It's about 90% finished."

The Reality: The first 90% of the code takes 90% of the time. The remaining 10% (the bugs, the edge cases, the deployment) takes the other 90% of the time.

Pro-Tip: If you hear "90%," assume you are actually at the halfway point and plan your marketing launch accordingly.

3. "It Works on My Machine"

The Translation: This is the engineer's way of saying, "I'm not crazy, but the universe is currently against us." It usually means there's a mismatch between the environment they built in and the environment your customers use.

Don't panic. The fix usually involves making the development environment match the one your customers use—so everyone's setup behaves the same and bugs don't hide in the gaps.

Pro-Tip: Ask: "What's different between your setup and production?" That question usually gets to the fix faster than finger-pointing.

4. Technical Debt (The "Credit Card" Analogy)

What it is: When we rush a feature to hit a deadline, we take out a "loan" of messy code. Eventually, the interest on that loan becomes so high that we can't build anything new because we're just busy fixing the old stuff.

The Fix: Every now and then, you have to let your engineers "pay down the balance" by cleaning up the pipes. It feels like you're paying for nothing, but you're actually buying future speed.

Pro-Tip: Schedule a small slice of each sprint (or quarter) for "paying down debt." Your future self will thank you.

If you'd rather have someone else do the translating—between you, your team, and the tech—that's what I'm here for.

Get in touch for a no-cost consultation.