Engineering Economics: The Hidden Cost of Technical Decisions

Every engineering leader knows technical decisions have costs. Few can calculate them.A senior engineer leaves and the team spends six months recovering. A database optimisation that should have saved money triggers a $500,000 outage.A metrics dashboard designed to track performance instead incentivises gaming. An engineering team builds the technically superior solution, and then watches the boring alternative win.These are not isolated failures. They are predictable economic patterns, and they are costing organisations millions in invisible losses every year.Engineering Economics makes those losses visible. Each chapter opens with a specific incident and a dollar figure, then works through the full cost calculation -- line by line, with auditable numbers. No motivational fluff. No checklists. No "seven steps to engineering excellence." Just the economics of decisions that engineering leaders face every quarter: how much attrition actually costs, when optimisation destroys more value than it creates, why the most technically exciting solution is often the most expensive one, and how to build the business case that proves it.Written in the analytical style of The Economist for CTOs, VPs of Engineering, and technical executives who want rigour, not platitudes.What this book covers:- The true cost of engineering attrition -- beyond recruiting fees.- Why invisible engineers generate more value than star performers.- The economics of onboarding and the twelve-month productivity curve.- How metrics systems fail and what gaming really costs.- When optimisation makes everything slower -- and how to know in advance.- The economic case for boring technology choices.- Why near-miss tracking prevents outages at a fraction of incident cost.Each chapter includes full cost frameworks with worked calculations. Substitute your own numbers and build the business case on Monday morning. Read more