Trailblazers and Road builders
Next time you are weighing the pros and cons of product team vs infra, green field projects vs established ones, big tech vs startup, ask yourself… are you a trailblazer or a road builder?
In software engineering, much like in the world of mountaineering and exploration, there are two kinds of people: the trailblazers and the road builders.
The trailblazers
Trailblazers are the pioneers. They’re the ones who look at a dense, unmapped wilderness and say, “Let’s see what’s out there.” Armed with little more than basic tools and a lot of courage, they carve out a path. It’s rarely perfect—it might be winding, steep, or downright dangerous—but it gets them where they need to go. When they return, they share their stories and rough maps, and soon enough, others follow in their footsteps, making the trail more established.
The road builders
Eventually, when enough people start using the trail, someone decides it’s time to formalize things. That’s where the road builders come in. These folks bring out the big guns: aerial photography, surveying equipment, and heavy machinery. They analyze the terrain, study the old trail, and say, “Why on earth did they take this long route? We could have just gone straight through here!” They flatten hills, build bridges, and create smooth highways, making the journey accessible to everyone.
But here’s the thing—it’s easy to criticize the trailblazers. They didn’t have the fancy tools, the hindsight, or even the luxury of time. Their goal was survival and discovery, not optimization. And even though road builders often do an incredible job improving things, sometimes they miss the mark.
Think about a public park with beautifully designed pathways that meander through the gardens. Looks great on paper, right? But what do people do? They cut straight across the grass, carving out a dirt path between point A and point B. These desire lines tell a story: the trailblazers were right all along. They found the most natural, intuitive route. People don’t care about symmetrical pathways or polished concrete. They just want to get where they’re going without overthinking it.
The Hackers
This happens in software engineering too. A trailblazer might whip up a quick solution—a simple, direct system that just works. Later, infrastructure engineers come in with grand plans: microservices, abstract layers, and complex pipelines. They overengineer the hell out of it, only to realize users now face more friction. Guess what? The users start creating their own desire lines: hacks, shortcuts, or workarounds to get back to what felt natural.
The lesson? Sometimes, simplicity beats sophistication. The best engineers know when to pave the intuitive path rather than forcing people onto a complex road they don’t want. Both trailblazers and road builders play crucial roles, and they’re both well-compensated for their efforts. But the real skill lies in recognizing when the trail was perfect to begin with.
“This sucks”
But are all trailblazers passionate? Not every trailblazer is a fearless, passionate explorer. Some trailblazers complain when their role shifts or when the excitement wears off. These are the folks who, instead of pushing forward, lament the difficulties of uncharted terrain. They may resist feedback, unwilling to admit their trail needs refinement. On the flip side, some road builders aren’t as methodical as they’d like to believe. Instead of embracing the responsibility to improve and optimize, they gripe about how chaotic the original trail was, constantly pointing fingers at the trailblazers for not "doing it right" the first time.
Complaining trailblazers and road builders slow everything down. They focus on what’s wrong rather than adapting to the task at hand. And in both cases, nothing gets better when the energy is wasted on complaints instead of progress.
What if...
What happens when you put a trailblazer in a road builder role or vice versa? Disaster. Imagine a trailblazer trying to build roads. They’re likely to get impatient, cutting corners and rushing through the process. They might ignore critical planning phases, resulting in a road that’s prone to collapse. Their instinct to "figure it out as we go" doesn’t work in a world where safety and longevity matter.
Now flip it. A road builder, when tasked with blazing a new trail, often freezes. They get stuck in analysis paralysis, overthinking every decision. They’re so focused on finding the "optimal" path that they forget the point of trailblazing is to just start moving. Progress slows to a crawl, and what could’ve been an exciting adventure turns into a frustrating exercise in indecision.
The real magic happens when people are placed in roles that align with their strengths. A good leader can spot who thrives in the unknown and who excels at refinement. And no matter which role you’re in, the key is to keep moving forward. The last thing you want to be is the one standing around, complaining—you’re just wasting everyone’s time.
So, Next time you are weighing the pros and cons of product team vs infra, green field projects vs established ones, bigtech vs startup, ask yourself… are you a trailblazer or a road builder?