Personal opinion -- it is exceptionally fair to ask you the "do you need THAT one" question. However as long as you can justify, we need to be supportive. It's a bit of the old "trust but verify" mentality. However we also need to understand the answer you are giving, and know when you are BSing us or not. It's why in my role I can't just be a business person, I absolutely have to have a background in the tech side and know when to lean in versus when to let you guys just do your jobs.

Having said that, in my experience engineers almost never throw BS. Facts and precision are baked into your DNA. Software developers on the other hand...