An Engineer's Guide to Storytelling

Why Storytelling Matters in Engineering

Engineers often default to facts and logic—and rightly so. But persuasion rarely happens through data alone. Stories create emotional resonance, make abstract concepts concrete, and stick in memory long after spreadsheets are forgotten. When you're advocating for a refactor, proposing a new architecture, or explaining a post-mortem, wrapping your message in a narrative helps others feel why it matters.

Storytelling also builds trust. Sharing how you arrived at a decision—the twists, dead-ends, and breakthroughs—humanizes you and invites collaboration. It signals that you've thought deeply and are open to feedback. In cross-functional settings, storytelling bridges the gap between technical and non-technical stakeholders, turning "we need to fix the monolith" into "here's what happened when we tried to scale last quarter, and here's what we learned."

Story Frameworks: Situation-Complication-Resolution

The Situation-Complication-Resolution (SCR) framework is a powerful structure for technical narratives. Situation sets the context: "We've been running our checkout flow on a legacy service for five years." Complication introduces the tension: "Black Friday traffic has grown 3x, and we're seeing timeouts and dropped orders." Resolution delivers the path forward: "We're proposing a phased migration to a new service, starting with read-heavy endpoints."

SCR keeps your story tight and purposeful. It prevents you from meandering through technical history and forces you to connect context to problem to solution. Use it in RFCs, post-mortems, proposals, and status updates. Audiences naturally expect a resolution—giving them one builds satisfaction and clarity.

Using Data to Support Narratives

Data should support your story, not replace it. Lead with the narrative arc, then anchor key points with numbers. "Our error rate spiked to 5% during the incident" is more impactful when embedded in the story of how the incident unfolded. Conversely, a slide full of metrics without a story leaves the audience wondering what to do with the information.

Choose metrics that matter to your audience. Latency percentiles might resonate with engineers; conversion impact resonates with product. Visualize data simply—line charts for trends, before/after comparisons for impact. Always provide context: "5% is 3x our baseline" tells readers whether that number is alarming. Use data as evidence within your narrative, not as the narrative itself.

Crafting Compelling Technical Narratives

Compelling technical narratives share a few traits. They have a clear protagonist—often the team, the user, or the system—and a stake—what we stand to gain or lose. They include concrete examples—specific incidents, user quotes, or code snippets—rather than abstract descriptions. They acknowledge tension—the tradeoffs, the unknowns, the disagreements—which makes them credible.

They also end with a call to action. A good story doesn't just inform; it moves people toward a decision or behavior. Whether you're proposing a migration, sharing learnings, or building alignment, make your "so what?" explicit. What should the reader do, think, or feel after finishing? Answer that, and your narrative will have lasting impact.