The Impactful Engineer - Mentorship, Career Growth, and Personal & Professional Excellence for Aspiring Engineers
Spreading awareness, success, and accessibility to the world of engineering to aspiring and early career engineers.
Episodes
172 episodes
Episode 172 - If No One Trusts You With Important Work, There’s a Reason
How do you know when you are starting to lose trust at work? Sometimes the signs are obvious. Sometimes they look like fewer assignments, meaningless work, weak feedback, or people simply avoiding you. In this episode, Steve and Jake break down...
Episode 171 - The Fastest-Growing Engineers Don’t Wait Until They’re Certain
Engineers are trained to analyze, validate, and reduce uncertainty. That becomes a problem when analysis turns into an excuse to delay action. In this episode, Steve and Jake break down two career-defining skills: urgency and agency. For early-...
Episode 170 - Every Excuse Is a Problem You Refused to Solve.
It is easy to explain why you are stuck. A teammate is late. Your team lacks a skill. Someone assembled the product wrong. A competitor has a better network. You never had the internship. In this episode, Steve and Jake break down how engineers...
Episode 169 - You Don’t Need to Agree. You Need to Execute.
You will not agree with every decision your boss, client, or business makes. That does not mean every disagreement deserves a fight. In this episode, Steve and Jake break down why strong engineers know when to make the recommendation, accept th...
Episode 168 - You Can’t Hold People Accountable for Expectations You Never Set
Accountability does not start when someone misses a deadline. It starts when the work begins. In this episode, Steve and Jake break down how strong engineers and leaders set clear expectations, document them, follow up before problems become em...
Episode 167 - You Don’t Have to Like the Change. You Have to Lead Through It.
Leadership changes. Your boss changes. The way your team operates changes. You can waste energy fighting it, or you can learn how to lead through it.In this episode, Steve and Jake break down how engineers should respond when new leaders...
Episode 166 - Your Work Is Invisible Because You Never Learned to Explain Its Value, with Vanessa Errecarte
Strong technical work does not automatically make you visible, memorable, or promotable. In this episode, Steve and Jake sit down with Vanessa Errecarte, author of Valuable and Visible and an instructor in digital marketing, corporate branding,...
Episode 165 - You Know the Answer, So Start Sounding Like It
You can know your project, understand the data, and have the right answer, yet still make leadership doubt you. In this episode, Steve and Jake break down how passive language, hedging, weak tone, and overexplaining destroy credibility. They sh...
Episode 164 - If the Expectations Are Unclear, Get the Answer
Confusion at work does not resolve itself. Unspoken expectations, poor meetings, unclear processes, and difficult leaders can leave engineers feeling powerless. In this episode, Steve and Jake explain how to stop accepting helplessness, ask bet...
Episode 163 - Nobody Cares Why You Didn’t Deliver
Your technical skill will not protect your reputation when you miss expectations, communicate late, or bury people in excuses. In this episode, Steve and Jake break down why reliable engineers focus on outcomes, anticipate problems, and communi...
Episode 162 - Your Talent Means Nothing If People Don’t Trust You
Confidence and trust are not personality traits. They are built through repeated behavior. In this episode, Steve and Jake break down why engineers do not fail because they lack technical skill. They fail when they cannot consistently follow th...
Episode 161 - The Work You Refuse to Let Go Is Keeping You Stuck
If you want to lead, manage, or grow into higher-impact work, you have to stop doing everything yourself. In this episode, Steve and Jake break down one of the hardest transitions for engineers: letting go of direct control, delegating real wor...
Episode 160 - The Fog Doesn’t Clear Until You Move
Too many engineers wait for the full picture before they act. They want every variable defined, every risk eliminated, and every decision defended before they take the first step. That sounds responsible, but often it is just fear wearing a pro...
Episode 159 - Your Career Is Moving Slow Because You Are
Most engineers do not lack capability. They lack urgency. In this episode, Steve and Jake break down why moving faster is not about being reckless. It is about creating demand for your skills, pulling problems forward, building judgment sooner,...
Episode 158 - The Raise You Want Requires the Reality Check You Avoid
Most engineers ask the wrong question: “Am I being paid market rate?” The better question is harder: “Am I a market rate engineer?” In this episode, Steve and Jake break down the uncomfortable truth behind pay, performance, perception, feedback...
Episode 157 - Stop Managing Preferences and Start Moving
Most engineers do not burn out because the work is too hard. They burn out because they spend too much energy trying to manage everyone else’s preferences, force agreement, and make every decision feel perfectly aligned before moving forward. I...
Episode 156 - Stop Giving Your Power Away
Most engineers don’t lose momentum because they lack skill. They lose it because they hand their energy, focus, and ownership to everything outside their control. In this episode, Steve and Jake break down one powerful mindset shift: blame is g...
Episode 155 - Stop Pretending You’re Aligned
Most execution problems do not start with bad technical work. They start with unclear expectations, hidden priorities, and assumptions nobody bothers to drag into the open. In this episode, Steve and Jake break down why alignment is not somethi...
Episode 154 - Stop Interviewing Like Every Other Engineer
Most engineers walk into interviews trying to prove they have the right technical background. That matters, but it is not enough. In this episode, Steve and Jake break down why your hobbies, side jobs, personal projects, past work experience, a...
Episode 153 - You Can’t Build Influence From Your Cubicle
Most engineers know technical skill matters. Fewer understand that relationships are what create trust, visibility, and opportunity. In this episode, Steve and Jake break down why relationships are not “office politics” in the shallow sense. Th...
Episode 152 - The First 90 Days: Where Engineers Win or Get Exposed
Most engineers don’t fail because they lack technical ability. They fail because they walk into their first job with the wrong mindset. In this episode, Steve and Jake break down exactly what to do in your first 90 days after getting hired. Not...
Episode 151 - Stop Hiding Behind Your Work. Start Leading the Room. With Salvatore Manzi
Most engineers don’t struggle because of technical ability. They struggle because they never learn how to communicate, show presence, and lead conversations. In this episode, we bring back communication expert Salvatore Manzi to break down what...
Episode 150 - You’re Not Overwhelmed. You’re Avoiding Action
Most engineers don’t struggle with anxiety because they have too much to do. They struggle because they don’t take action on the right things. In this episode, Steve and Jake break down how anxiety shows up in your career, what’s actually causi...
Episode 149 - Nobody Owes You the Next Level
Most engineers believe that if they work hard enough, someone will eventually notice and give them the opportunity they want. That’s not how it works. In this episode, Steve and Jake break down the reality of career growth: every level, every o...
Episode 148 - “They Should Know” Is Killing Your Career
Most engineers don’t struggle because of technical gaps. They struggle because they rely on what others “should” do instead of taking ownership of the outcome. In this episode, Steve and Jake break down why that mindset stalls your career and h...