The Staff Engineer's Path: A Guide for Individual Contributors Navigating Growth and Change

by Tanya Reilly

you could solve this same problem with spreadsheets, would you still want to do it?13 The “alternatives considered” section is where you demonstrate (to yourself and others!) that you’re here to solve the problem and you aren’t just excited about the solution. If you find yourself omitting this section because you didn’t consider any alternatives, that’s a signal that you may not have thought the problem through. Why wouldn’t simpler solutions or off-the-shelf products work? Has anyone else at your company ever tried something similar, and why isn’t their solution a good fit? I have a policy that if a plausible-seeming option already exists inside the company and we’re not going to use it, the RFC author has to send the new design to the people who own that system and give them an opportunity to respond. Those are the headings that I think absolutely have to be included, even on a tiny RFC. They’re the “keep you honest” sections! But there are some others that are often helpful if you want to get the most value out of the document you’re writing.