“It depends” is what most senior engineers say when asked almost anything. Yes, it is a real answer, but, according to me, it should be followed by an explanation. Without that, it is just a way to sound ‘smart’ while saying nothing literally.
To be fair, many decisions genuinely do depend on context. But stopping there gives the other person nothing to work with. Again, to me, an “it depends” answer should have four parts:
- what factors drive the decision,
- under what constraints each option makes sense,
- practical workarounds, and
- a concrete example that makes the reasoning tangible.
I will give a classic example of a database decision (of course).
Say someone asks, “Should we use a relational or document database?” The honest answer is that it depends. But then you have to land it with the following pointers:
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if you have a fixed schema or need strict consistency, go relational.
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if your schema is not fixed and you are optimizing for flexible, nested reads, a document store fits better, and
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if you are early stage and unsure, start relational - because migrating away from a document store once queries become complex is painful.
That is a complete answer. The other person now at least knows how to think about the decision, not just that the decision exists. It may sound harsh, but if they cannot name the factors and give examples, they probably do not know the answer yet.
That is fine too - just say so.