Master the professional word combinations used when discussing and shaping engineering culture in English. These collocations appear in engineering blogs, all-hands talks, and team charters.
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The company tries to ___ a blameless culture where post-mortems focus on systems, not individuals.
We 'foster a culture' in organisational and leadership language. 'Foster' means to actively encourage and nurture: foster a culture, foster innovation, foster collaboration. 'Build a culture' is also widely used and natural. 'Create' implies starting from nothing; 'develop' is more gradual.
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Senior engineers are expected to ___ knowledge with junior team members through code reviews and informal mentoring.
We 'share knowledge' — the dominant collocation. 'Knowledge sharing' is the standard noun phrase in engineering and HR. 'Pass on knowledge' works in mentoring contexts. 'Transfer knowledge' is more formal and implies a deliberate handover. 'Spread knowledge' sounds informal and unstructured.
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The team holds regular retrospectives to ___ continuous improvement and address recurring issues.
We 'drive continuous improvement' in agile and engineering management language. 'Drive' means to actively push and direct: drive improvement, drive change, drive results. It implies proactive leadership. 'Promote improvement' is softer and more passive. 'Enable improvement' focuses on removing blockers.
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It's important to ___ psychological safety so that engineers feel comfortable raising concerns without fear of blame.
We 'cultivate psychological safety' in leadership and team culture language. 'Cultivate' implies ongoing, careful nurturing — the most precise verb for something that grows over time. 'Build psychological safety' and 'create psychological safety' are also widely used, especially in citations of Amy Edmondson's work. 'Establish' focuses on the initial creation.
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The engineering director encouraged the team to ___ calculated risks and experiment with new approaches in hackathons.
We 'take risks' — the standard collocation. 'Take a calculated risk' is the full professional phrase. 'Take risks' is always correct; 'make risks' is not used in English. 'Embrace risks' and 'accept risks' suggest tolerating rather than actively choosing. 'Take calculated risks' implies strategic, informed decision-making.