One of the abilities that differentiates a good software engineer from a great one is the ability to focus at the required abstraction layer. I call this skill “zooming in and out.”

What Does Zooming Mean?

Think of your codebase as a map. Sometimes you need the satellite view to understand how continents connect. Other times you need street-level detail to find a specific address. Great engineers switch between these perspectives fluidly.

Zooming out means stepping back to see:

• How components interact across the system
• The data flow from user input to storage and back
• Architectural patterns and their tradeoffs
• The business problem you’re actually solving

Zooming in means diving deep to understand:

• The specific algorithm or data structure at play
• Memory layout and performance characteristics
• Edge cases in a particular function
• The exact bytes going over the wire

The Chess Parallel

Chess players know this tension intimately. In chess, we call it tactics versus strategy.

Tactics are the zoomed-in view: calculating concrete move sequences, spotting combinations, exploiting immediate threats. “If I play Nxf7, they take with the king, I fork with Qe6+…”

Strategy is the zoomed-out view: pawn structure, piece coordination, weak squares, long-term plans. “I need to trade my bad bishop, control the d-file, and create a passed pawn on the queenside.”

The parallels to software engineering are striking:

You can win every tactical skirmish and still lose the game. A player might snag a pawn with a clever trick, only to realize they’ve traded into a hopeless endgame. Their pieces are misplaced, their pawns are weak, and their king is exposed. They won the battle but lost the war.

In code, this looks like: obsessing over micro-optimizations while the architecture becomes unmaintainable. Winning arguments about syntax while shipping the wrong feature. Perfecting a function that shouldn’t exist.

The reverse is equally dangerous. A player with a beautiful strategic position—coordinated pieces, ideal pawn structure, a clear plan—can still get mated in three moves if they miss a tactic. While they’re slowly maneuvering a knight to its ideal square, their opponent launches a devastating attack.

In code: designing elegant abstractions while a race condition corrupts your data. Planning the perfect refactor while a critical bug ships to production. Thinking about scalability while your app crashes from a null pointer.

The best chess players, like the best engineers, constantly shift focus. Calculate when you need to calculate. Plan when you need to plan. And always ask: is this the right moment to zoom in or out?

Developing This Skill

Like any skill, zooming gets better with practice:

1. Ask “why” and “how” in alternation. Why does this feature exist? How is it implemented? Why was this approach chosen? How do the pieces connect?

2. Explain your code at different levels. Practice describing the same system to a new engineer, a product manager, and an executive. Each requires a different zoom level.

3. Read code at varying depths. Sometimes skim a codebase to understand its shape. Other times, step through a function line by line. Both are valuable.

4. Draw diagrams at multiple scales. System architecture, component interactions, class relationships, sequence diagrams—each reveals different truths.

5. Debug systematically. Resist the urge to immediately grep for error messages. First, understand where in the system you are and what should be happening.

Knowing When to Zoom

The art is knowing which level matters right now. Some signals:

• Zoom out when: You’re starting a new task, the bug seems “impossible,” you’re making an architectural decision, or you’re explaining to stakeholders.

• Zoom in when: You’ve identified the problem area, performance matters, you’re reviewing security-sensitive code, or the devil is in the details.

• Stay at your current level when: You’re making steady progress and the scope is appropriate.

Consider debugging: you start at the symptom (zoomed in), pull back to trace data flow (zoom out), identify the problematic area (medium zoom), then dive into the specific bug (zoom back in). The best engineers move through these levels fluidly.

The Meta-Skill

Perhaps the real skill isn’t zooming itself—it’s the awareness that you can zoom. Many engineers never realize they’re stuck at one level. They don’t know what they’re not seeing.

Once you’re aware of zoom levels, you can ask: “Am I looking at this from the right altitude?” That question alone will make you a better engineer.

The satellite view and the street view are both true. Great engineers know when each is useful.