Managing Engineering Capacity: Moving Beyond the 'Fast vs. Slow' Binary

Speed is not the problem, speed is a symptom

Industry expert Charity Majors addresses the systemic failure of pushing engineering teams to 100% capacity. She argues that urgency is a psychological lever rather than a viable technical strategy.

Why This Matters

There is a fundamental disconnect between management’s perception of efficiency and the technical reality of system throughput. While leaders often view full capacity as peak performance, software systems—much like urban traffic—experience gridlock when saturation reaches 100%, resulting in decreased velocity and engineer burnout (the ‘melting point’).

Key Insights

• Avoid binary terms like ‘fast’ or ‘slow’ in favor of textured vocabulary such as ‘saturation’ and ‘clock rate’ to describe team friction and resource allocation (Majors, 2026).
• Technical debt should be categorized into principal debt, interest rate, increase in principal/interest, and payoff events to quantify energy loss (Jack Danger, Technical Debt Financing).
• Measuring productivity through frameworks like DORA metrics, SPACE, Swarmia, or GetDX provides more objective data than emotional urgency (Majors, 2026).

Practical Applications

• Use Case: Staff+ engineers providing evidence-based data to VPs showing that reduced inflow of work increases overall velocity.
• Pitfall: Using ‘urgency’ as a management strategy; this creates an emotional stressor that serves as a short-term fix but fails as a long-term structural solution.

References:

• https://stackoverflow.blog/2026/06/12/what-s-the-facts-charity-how-do-i-get-my-leaders-to-stop-running-teams-into-the-ground/