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Ask HN: What is the most surprising technical skill you possess?

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21–30 of 37 posts

Re: Ask HN: What is the most surprising technical skill you possess?

#21
post #2

Empathy. It seems to be the basis for the small degree of mechanical sympathy I have because it makes me stop and think, 'why does someone else think this is the right way of doing things?'. Good luck.

Just going to write this here so I can come across it days from now as I go through my comments as a good reminder to myself.

Well said.

Re: Ask HN: What is the most surprising technical skill you possess?

#22
Understanding data. I've always had a fairly easy time learning core business processes and tying the data I'm looking at back to the activity that generated it. It's been really useful in managing analytics and data services because nothing I work with is a bunch of rows and columns without meaning to me, and as a result, I can deliver information based on what a given group is trying to accomplish (versus what they asked for, which is almost always different than what they actually need). It's also why I enjoy managing people. I usually bring on technically gifted people and help them learn the business, as that combination of skills has been the rarest thing of all for me to try and find when hiring. I work in a corner of the insurance industry that most consumers probably never see, but I like to think I make my own little impact when some of the people I develop move on to bigger and better things at companies we've all heard of. I know I'm off on a tangent, but if you're working in an analytic space, make time to learn the business and it will pay off in the long run.

I've been writing code since I was a kid, got an economics degree, then went to law school and practiced law for a while. Identifying objectives and finding the data that suits it has always been fun for me. Not surprising (to me, anyway), my career moved back from law to managing data and analytics as products.

Re: Ask HN: What is the most surprising technical skill you possess?

#23
post #2

Empathy. It seems to be the basis for the small degree of mechanical sympathy I have because it makes me stop and think, 'why does someone else think this is the right way of doing things?'. Good luck.

This was a surprising but well chosen skill to mention. Well done.

Re: Ask HN: What is the most surprising technical skill you possess?

#25
post #6

Laziness - though of course when hiring you would bill it as efficiency or "expertise in software automation". A PhD taught me that often the best way to do things is the way that lets you press one button and have everything else happen automatically. Mostly it's to make life easier, particularly when 2 months down the line you need to make a subtle code change and reprocess huge volumes of data. Being able to start…

LOL

Re: Ask HN: What is the most surprising technical skill you possess?

#26
post #2

Empathy. It seems to be the basis for the small degree of mechanical sympathy I have because it makes me stop and think, 'why does someone else think this is the right way of doing things?'. Good luck.

It's really important in management. You can draw a line between the great and the bad managers based on emotional intelligence. It's not even about being a decent boss who cares about your people as humans, although I'm a big proponent of that too. Emotional intelligence is the "thing" that enables a manager to step back and consider why an idea that isn't his or her own might be the best path forward. In other words, empathy means allowing the people you've developed to impress you with what they know, rather than making them conform to your own ideas as a survival mechanism. If you go the latter, you better be brilliant, but even then the good people will leave you.

Re: Ask HN: What is the most surprising technical skill you possess?

#27

Knowing how to use Google really well so I can find answers to bugs, tutorials, code snippets, etc. Learned the importance of this from a wise older Chinese programmer at my first job ever, an internship: "I don't really know how to code anything, I just copy it from Google."

I've seen several references to Google magic. Give a quick tutorial or provide a couple examples? I know you can do things like +this or -that and other sort of basics for more precision. I'm guessing I've barely scratched the google search service. You guys are at Google Level 12 or something. :-)

Re: Ask HN: What is the most surprising technical skill you possess?

#30

Understanding data. I've always had a fairly easy time learning core business processes and tying the data I'm looking at back to the activity that generated it. It's been really useful in managing analytics and data services because nothing I work with is a bunch of rows and columns without meaning to me, and as a result, I can deliver information based on what a given group is trying to accomplish (versus what they…

+1 for tangent...I mean context, explanation and relevance. I appreciate the complete response.
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