The 'Lazy' Engineer's Edge: Simplifying Cloud For Business Value

Forbes

25-06-2025

Miles Ward is the CTO of SADA, An Insight company, a leading Google Cloud Partner.
You've probably heard the joke: The best engineers are lazy. And maybe you chuckled. But I actually think there's a deep truth there. Not lazy like they're avoiding work, but lazy like a fox—they instinctively hunt for the smartest, fastest, most efficient path to get things done, cutting out any unnecessary steps.
In today's world, where speed is the game, that instinct—that drive to simplify, especially how we deploy and run applications in the cloud—isn't just a personality quirk. It's a massive strategic advantage waiting to be unlocked.
For too long, getting software into production felt like wrestling a bear. Provisioning servers, configuring load balancers, patching operating systems, figuring out scaling—all that infrastructure wrangling, the endless "plumbing." It wasn't just tedious; it absolutely killed momentum.
Every hour your sharpest engineers spent messing with infrastructure was an hour they weren't spending building the features your customers actually care about, the stuff that differentiates you from the competition. That friction is exhausting, and it directly slows down your business.
The cloud was supposed to fix all that, right? And it helped, moving the hardware headache elsewhere. But often, we just swapped one kind of complexity for another. The real revolution, the thing I get genuinely excited about, is the rise of higher-level abstractions—platforms that truly hide the messy details.
I'm a huge fan of systems, like modern serverless or managed container platforms, where developers can be in their coding environment, hit "play" and—whoop—their code is live, running, scalable, secured and monitored in production, practically instantly. That's not magic; it's just incredibly smart abstraction taking care of the undifferentiated heavy lifting. It's ridiculous how much capability these platforms hand over, letting developers just…develop.
Why Leaders Should Champion This 'Strategic Laziness'
This isn't just about making developers happier (though that's a nice bonus!). Driving simplicity in deployment has direct, hard-hitting business benefits:
1. Ship faster, win sooner. Less time fighting infrastructure means more time shipping features. Simple as that. Getting new ideas and improvements to market faster isn't just nice; it's often the difference between leading and lagging.
2. Slash operational drag. Automating scaling and patching security configurations through managed services? That dramatically cuts down the sheer effort and cost of just keeping the lights on. It frees up people and budget for innovation, not just maintenance.
3. Build more reliable systems. Let's face it, fewer knobs to turn means fewer knobs to turn wrong. Well-architected managed platforms bake in best practices for availability and security, often leading to more robust applications than trying to hand-roll everything yourself.
4. Unleash your engineers' brainpower. You hired smart people to solve business problems, not to become experts in the arcane details of Kubernetes networking (unless that is your business). Simplifying deployment lets them focus their talents where they deliver unique value.
Making 'Lazy' Work For You: A Leader's Playbook
So, how do you cultivate this powerful, efficient "laziness" in your organization? It takes conscious effort from leadership:
• Stop ignoring developer friction; make DevEx a top priority. Seriously, how easy is it for your developers to get code safely into production? If it's painful, you're losing ground. When evaluating any tool or platform, explicitly ask: "How much operational complexity does this remove from my team?" Prioritize solutions that feel empowering, not burdensome.
• Get off the infrastructure hamster wheel by leaning into managed services. Challenge the default "build it ourselves" mentality for commodity infrastructure tasks. Aggressively explore serverless functions, managed databases, PaaS offerings and managed Kubernetes. Don't reinvent wheels that cloud providers are already perfecting at massive scale. Ask "Why not managed?" instead of "Why managed?"
• Measure the speed, not just the spend. Track deployment frequency and lead time (code committed to production). These are your vital signs for development velocity. Drive these numbers down by ruthlessly eliminating friction in your deployment pipeline.
• Declare war on unnecessary complexity. Foster a culture where the simplest solution that works is celebrated. Encourage engineers to challenge complexity wherever they see it. Sometimes, the most sophisticated technical solution isn't the smartest business solution if a simpler managed service gets you 90% of the way there faster and cheaper.
• Focus relentlessly on business value. Frame every technology discussion around outcomes. How does this choice help you deliver value to customers faster, more reliably or more cost-effectively? The goal isn't complex tech; it's business impact. Simplicity is often the straightest line there.
This isn't about cutting corners. It's about strategically removing drag. That "lazy" engineer's drive for simplicity? It's your secret weapon for maximizing the impact of your most critical resource—your development talent. By clearing the path, removing the pointless friction and embracing smart abstractions, you empower your teams to build better, ship faster and drive the innovation that truly matters.
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