The Hidden Cost of Vague Expectations in Engineering Teams

Confusion is expensive.

Not in ways that show up neatly on a balance sheet, but in the quiet, compounding costs that surface over time: people staying late to hit deadlines that were never clearly defined, teams reworking solutions because the goalposts moved, and talented engineers slowly losing trust in the systems meant to support them.

In engineering teams, vague expectations often get mistaken for flexibility. There’s a belief that leaving things open-ended gives people room to think, adapt, and move quickly. In practice, it usually does the opposite. When expectations aren’t clear, people don’t feel empowered — they feel exposed.

This vagueness tends to hide in plain sight. It shows up in tickets and PRDs that technically exist, but don’t contain enough detail to work from with confidence. It appears in the ownership of systems, where everyone assumes someone else is responsible, until something breaks and no one knows who to turn to. It shows up in career progression conversations that never quite happen, leaving people unsure of what they’re working towards or how growth is measured.

On their own, these gaps can seem small. But together, they create an environment where guessing becomes part of the job.

When expectations are unclear, engineers don’t stop working — they start compensating. They overthink decisions. They read between the lines of Slack messages. They work overtime to meet deadlines that were set on incomplete information. High performers quietly absorb more and more responsibility, often without being asked, until exhaustion becomes normal and being “reliable” starts to cost them their health.

Burnout follows. Deadlines slip anyway. And something more subtle begins to happen: trust in leadership starts to erode.

This loss of trust is rarely announced out loud, but it’s visible if you know what to look for. It shows up in guarded conversations, in fewer questions being asked, in a noticeable shift in how people engage with decision-makers. When expectations are vague or constantly changing, people stop believing the system is fair. They stop believing that doing their best work will actually be enough.

At ground level, this ambiguity doesn’t just affect delivery — it affects identity. This is where imposter syndrome quietly takes root. Thoughts like Am I doing enough? Why am I always wrong? The rules keep changing. I guess I’ll just do everything. When people don’t know what success looks like, they assume the failure is personal. Over time, that assumption becomes internalised, and no amount of reassurance fully undoes it.

Most of the time, vague expectations aren’t the result of bad intent. They’re the result of discomfort. Leaders avoid difficult conversations with clients because they’re afraid of losing the relationship, even though honesty would usually build more trust in the long run. In other cases, leaders themselves are unsure what the next step should be, especially in organisations without clear processes, so expectations remain fuzzy rather than explicit.

I’ve been on both sides of this. I’ve also been the person who believed the promise that a corporate system would be “plug and play,” only to discover fragmented documentation, missing context, and a reality that had to be stitched together piece by piece. Asking for clarity often meant endless meetings with dozens of people, none of whom truly owned the answers. In situations like that, vagueness feels almost inevitable — but that doesn’t make it harmless.

There’s a persistent fear that clarity leads to micromanagement. That spelling things out too clearly will limit autonomy or creativity. In reality, clarity does the opposite. It doesn’t dictate how work should be done — it defines what success looks like, what information is available, who owns which decisions, and where the boundaries are. It gives people a solid surface to stand on so they can focus on the work, rather than protecting themselves from being wrong.

Clarity also demands accountability. It requires leaders to think ahead, to write things down, to commit to decisions, and to acknowledge when answers are still being figured out. It takes effort upfront, and it often means repeating yourself more than feels necessary. But the alternative is far more expensive.

Confusion drains energy. It creates invisible labour. It pushes the most capable people to overextend themselves and quietly disengages the rest.

Clarity, on the other hand, is generous. It tells people they don’t need to read between the lines. That they’re allowed to focus. That they’re safe to do their best work.

And in engineering teams, that generosity pays off far more than ambiguity ever will.