Bjørn JohansenAug 27, 20262 min readintermediate

The pursuit of excellence does not need justification

Summary

Opinion piece arguing that engineers should pursue excellence without needing to justify it, using anecdotes about a fast terminal emulator and a WordPress menu cache to illustrate how over‑engineering can yield unexpected downstream benefits, while also acknowledging the practical need for “good enough” decisions.

Building faster, higher‑quality tools can create indirect benefits for unrelated projects.
Improvements raise the baseline for future work, enabling tighter feedback loops and more experimentation.
“Good enough” is a short‑term scheduling heuristic; excellence is a long‑term direction.

Highlights a mindset trade‑off that many engineers face: balancing immediate delivery constraints against investing in higher‑quality, potentially over‑engineered solutions that may pay off later.

3/10

performance career

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The pursuit of excellence does not need justification

Summary

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