Ask HN: How do you deal with managers/customers questioning your estimates?

A Hacker News discussion thread where experienced engineers share strategies for handling stakeholder pushback on estimates. Key approaches include breaking down estimates to show complexity, using historical data to demonstrate past accuracy, explaining that estimates include testing/documentation/edge cases not just coding, offering trade-offs between scope/quality/time rather than just defending timelines, and documenting assumptions and risks upfront. The community emphasizes that good estimation defense requires educating stakeholders about invisible work (refactoring, testing, deployment), using ranges instead of single points, comparing to similar past projects, and being willing to walk away from unreasonable demands. Engineering leaders will learn techniques like 'yes, and' responses ('Yes, we can do it faster, and here's what we'd need to cut'), creating shared understanding through collaborative estimation sessions, and building trust through consistent delivery rather than arguing about individual estimates. The thread reveals that the real problem often isn't the estimate but the lack of shared understanding about software development complexity.