High-Agency Engineering: Why You Want To Be Blocked
Why You Should Run Into The Wall On Day One
Most people do everything they can to avoid being blocked.
They see a blocker as a failure of planning. I see it as a sign of progress. If you are not blocked, you are probably not moving fast enough. You are likely prioritizing “safe” work. You are polishing the things you control and avoiding the friction points you do not control.
There are two types of blockers. There are Theoretical Blockers. This is when you stop working because you anticipate a problem next week. You are guessing. Then, there are True Blockers. This is when the system physically prevents you from typing the next line of code, writing a section of your document, or deploying the next build.
High-agency people do not respect theoretical blockers. They push until they hit a true blocker. They want to hit the wall.
Consider a common scenario. You need your application to talk to a secure database owned by another team.
The Theoretical Blocker approach is to schedule a meeting with the team and CC the security team. You…
