How Writing Made Me a Better Engineer
The Unexpected Path to Tech Lead
John Carmack, the legendary programmer behind Doom and Quake, once said something that stuck with me:
"The best debugging tool is a clear explanation to someone else."
I learned it the hard way:
I spent three days hunting a bug that was crashing our payment system.
Nothing worked.
When my boss asked for an update, I started typing an email to explain the problem.
That's when I realized something uncomfortable: I didn't actually understand the system.
I could make it work. I could debug it. I could even extend it. But I couldn't explain it clearly, which meant I didn't really know how it worked.
Writing forced me to think in a way that coding never did.
So I fixed the bug an hour later. Not because I found some clever trick.
But because I tried to explain the problem.
There’s a strange thing that happens when you write:
You become your own teacher.
Thoughts that feel solid in your head fall apart on the page.
You try to explain what the system does and realize you’re bluffing.
Not on purpose.
But because you’ve been skipping steps in your head.
Writing has no compiler for bad logic. Every assumption becomes visible. Every bug becomes embarrassing.
The best engineers I know are also the best at explaining their work.
Not because they want to teach.
But because explaining is how they discover what they didn’t know.
Writing doesn’t just record your thoughts.
It reveals them.
Tests them.
Breaks them.
Then puts them back together—cleaner, sharper, stronger.
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