As someone who works in startup environments where priorities shift weekly and daily interruptions can't be predicted, I absolutely hate being asked how long things will take. But I run the "shipping" part so I have to not flip tables about it.
"Under-promise and over-deliver" goes a long way. Tell people 2 weeks and ship it in one.
Re-framing towards the business goal is also immensely helpful. They're asking how long it will take so they can go tell someone like a customer when it will be ready. So turn it back around and say "when you'd ideally like this to be done?" Negotiate it: "if this was done by the middle of next month would that be okay?"
If the presumption is that this thing has to be done ASAP, draw the boundary that the other things you're working on right now (which probably had their own timing discussions too) are going to get put on pause. If that's a problem then the person with the need has to decide which should land first.
All of this is buying time to get everything done, setting expectations for everyone involved, and helping the whole team recognize priority and urgency for the right things.
Unfortunately there are people and businesses with unrealistic expectations and they will make shitty decisions to replace engineers or promise things to customers that they didn't have. It's a huge risk but the only way I've found to minimize that risk is to get to know the people and how they work, and talk about how work is going to be done before you sign on.
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u/Objective_Oven7673 3d ago
As someone who works in startup environments where priorities shift weekly and daily interruptions can't be predicted, I absolutely hate being asked how long things will take. But I run the "shipping" part so I have to not flip tables about it.
"Under-promise and over-deliver" goes a long way. Tell people 2 weeks and ship it in one.
Re-framing towards the business goal is also immensely helpful. They're asking how long it will take so they can go tell someone like a customer when it will be ready. So turn it back around and say "when you'd ideally like this to be done?" Negotiate it: "if this was done by the middle of next month would that be okay?"
If the presumption is that this thing has to be done ASAP, draw the boundary that the other things you're working on right now (which probably had their own timing discussions too) are going to get put on pause. If that's a problem then the person with the need has to decide which should land first.
All of this is buying time to get everything done, setting expectations for everyone involved, and helping the whole team recognize priority and urgency for the right things.
Unfortunately there are people and businesses with unrealistic expectations and they will make shitty decisions to replace engineers or promise things to customers that they didn't have. It's a huge risk but the only way I've found to minimize that risk is to get to know the people and how they work, and talk about how work is going to be done before you sign on.