Translating business requirements into technical solutions
Lessons from consulting and product engineering on finding the real problem, framing options, and implementing what stakeholders can use.
Requirements are rarely the solution. In consulting engagements at Blue Acorn and Somo, the useful work started by separating what a stakeholder asked for from the job they needed done. A personalization request might really be a conversion problem. A “new page” might be a workflow problem. Naming that difference early saves months.
I treat translation as a three-step craft: clarify outcomes, propose a technical shape with tradeoffs, then implement enough to validate the shape. Presenting Adobe Experience Manager capabilities to Charter Communications was not a feature dump. It was mapping platform capabilities to their content and personalization goals, then implementing the Adobe Target integration that made the idea real.
Independent products reinforce the same muscle. Buyer Boards did not need a full brokerage platform on day one. It needed a clear board for comparing homes with payment math and context. Finding the minimum complete loop is a Solutions Engineering skill as much as an engineering one.
The bridge to Solutions Engineering is not abandoning implementation. It is keeping implementation credibility while getting better at discovery, framing, and communication. Hiring managers should expect both.