Sounds like perhaps you should use this skill more often then, perhaps become an interviewer for a remote company like this? https://stackoverflow.com/jobs/141116/freelance-expert-inter...
Best of luck and keep your chin up :)
Ask HN: I'm not a good programmer, but I keep acing interviews
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Re: Ask HN: I'm not a good programmer, but I keep acing interviews
#42I think one solution is to accept the job and work on the skills that you lack to be a "good programmer".
If you decide to go this way and believe communication is a skill you would like to develop, I can help.
I am not an expert by all means, but I keep receiving good feedback from my coworkers regarding my communication skills. I prepared a talk with tips on written communication that also got very positive feedback (so much I am going to give this talk a third time inside the company).
You may even notice that I am not a native English speaker, but my tips are about communication, not proper English writing :)
So we can work it out on some remote coaching. What better way to improve written communication than exchanging emails on complex subjects?
If you are interested, my email is on my profile.
And good luck with your choice!
Re: Ask HN: I'm not a good programmer, but I keep acing interviews
#43I think you answered your own question in a way. The baseball analogy is you keep making the team (acing interviews) but it sounds like you are trying out for teams below your league. Like a major league player trying out for AA ball team.
OR
Maybe you have to realize that being a software engineer really doesn't have much to do with optimizing algorithms, trade-offs on design paradigms, how to perfectly architect an application or having perfect code. Unless you are at a brand new startup working on v1.0 you are maintaining software. When a company has a tech stack and an application built, they have already made most of the decisions.
You comment about office politics, communication and risk management. These are facets of working for anyone in any job where there is a decent sized office. Spend more time interviewing the company, boss and potential coworkers next time. Come to the realization that being a software engineer isn't just about writing code.