Economic Thinking

At Level 1, economic thinking isn't really on your radar yet—and that's totally okay. Your focus is on delivering technically correct work and learning the ropes of the team and product. If financial implications cross your mind, it's usually because someone else brought them up. This level is about developing awareness: that code has cost, time is money, and not all solutions are created equal—even if they work.

Key Behaviors

  • Focuses on implementing correct solutions to meet requirements
  • Relies on others to flag cost, performance, or complexity concerns
  • Is curious when economic trade-offs are discussed
  • Starts to ask: "Why are we doing it this way?"
  • Is open to feedback about overengineering or misaligned effort

Common Struggles

  • Assumes the most technically elegant solution is the best one
  • Doesn't yet grasp the concept of opportunity cost or ROI
  • May spend lots of time on low-impact problems
  • Confuses "works well" with "worth doing"
  • Reluctant to challenge scope or suggest simpler paths

Success Indicators

You know you're successful when you:

  • Build awareness that time and complexity have a price
  • Start listening for how decisions impact customers, budgets, or timelines
  • Ask questions that connect engineering choices to business outcomes
  • Avoid overbuilding by checking in when unsure

Mindset Shift

From:

"If it works, it's good."

To:

"If it's the right level of investment, it's good."

Questions to Ask Yourself

  • What's the cost of building this vs. the value it adds?
  • Could we solve this with a smaller or faster approach?
  • Who else is affected by the time or resources this takes?

Build These Habits

  • 1
    Clarify "why now" before jumping into a fix or feature
  • 2
    Practice estimating rough effort or cost—even informally
  • 3
    Compare multiple solutions, not just for correctness, but for cost/benefit
  • 4
    Observe which tasks the team prioritizes and why

Seek Feedback

  • "Was there a simpler way I could have approached this?"
  • "How do we usually decide what's worth building?"
  • "Am I spending time where it matters most?"

Signals You're Ready to Level Up

  • You ask about effort, not just implementation
  • You catch yourself before overbuilding
  • You're curious about the "why" behind product priorities

Focus Summary

  • Ask why
  • Stay curious
  • Spend your effort wisely

Economic thinking starts with awareness. You don't need to be a CFO—you just need to start seeing that every line of code has a cost. Sometimes the smartest thing you can do is not build the thing.