This is likely the start to a useful approach. I suspect the crux of the challenge is that engineers who need to write code get very pedantic in their questions and picking the answers apart (because we need to be! code leaves no room for ambiguity or intuition). And you can imagine how that feels from the other side. I imagine a lot of people feel like an engineer asking about the actual problem feels like getting goaded into some sort of pedantic debate. A natural response will be to try to dictate what to build (often micromanaging) and avoid the discussion about why at all costs. Writing offers a bit of a neutralizing buffer, at least.