Ask HN: Can't get a job because poor communication skills

Consider this logically. Which would be the most optimal and efficient solution to your problem; learning to change your own behavior and expectations, or expecting the whole world to adapt to you?

Btw, I have similar difficulties in expressing myself verbally and can relate to your issues very well. I'm probably a lot older than you though, so I've had a few years to work on my 'soft' skills. I'd say I'm only moderately annoying by now, I'm aiming for 'quaint' by the end of the year.

I know a guy who literally could not program, he was hired as a HTML & CSS front-end guy. He was extremely arrogant and always tried to act like he knew what he was doing when it was clear he had no clue, any sort of attempt at teaching would be met with a smug "yeah I already knew how to do that" reply. He wasn't even good at HTML or CSS, either. But he really did know how to suck up to HR, his boss, the management, and getting others to help him do his job. From the outside it seemed like he was competent, but in fact he was skilled at playing people. It would be a win-win for everyone if he was a manager, so his co-workers never have to deal with his horrible, bug-ridden code. This is the type of guy that gets ahead in life while brilliant programmers who lack the over-socialization that is expected these days live on welfare, with parents, or on the streets.

First, let me explain why I wouldn't hire you based on what you've written here. For starters, communication is a huge part of the job. Writing code is only one part - clarifying vague or contradictory requirements, helping coworkers, updating on progress, sharing lessons learned, etc are all equally important.

Hiring you also sounds like a huge risk and liability to the company. Every tech company tries to hire and retain women and minority employees and even a single accusation of a hostile work environment or a single incident can tank a company. If I hire you and one of your rude statements or misunderstood communications turns into a blog post on jezebel, I'm probably getting fired as well as putting the entire company at risk. Even if that doesn't happen, my A players are probably going to start looking for better opportunities if they're forced to deal with your toxic attitude in the workplace.

Autism isn't a super power. It's a handicap. You need to drastically check your ego and approach the world as it is rather than how you wish it was. You are very bad at something which is very important (communication).

Approach the the problem of "How can I communicate better?" in the same way you would approach any other challenge - read books, work with experts, ask for help, experiment and see what the results of trying different things is, etc. Change your perspective to accepting you are inferior at one aspect of your job and work to increase proficiency, instead of getting angry that the rest of the world doesn't share in your belief of your superiority.

Depending where you live in Europe around 80% of people are quite nice naturally, and will help you if you tell them you struggle or ask for help (but most won't usually understand or care about your autism problems). Avoid the other 20%, they are just exploiting you or making fun of you.

Regarding interviews, try researching a fitting environment. Interviews can usually be hacked quite easily with a little training. Basically you tell them the response they want to hear. If you don't know what to say to a question, either you say "I don't understand", or you grab the most important word of the question and tell them something vaguely connected to it. Obviously the more interview rounds there are, the more chance there is that someone won't like you and puts its veto. Don't attach too much importance to it.

Once you land a job, try to go about two times slower than you can. This way you won't burn out (and be in a bad mood), people won't actively try to prey on you (to get you to do their work), and you will have enough mental energy to naturally pick-up communication skills. (You just earn yourself 20 hours a week to work on improving your communication skills, and even your company will be happy about it trust me).

Also don't be afraid to take welfare. We are in a society which is designed to take advantage of people with autism. It's like taking candy from a baby. So at least take the money, and if you don't need it then give it to someone who does. Or you can keep the money and give some of your time to help some who needs it.

Sadly, it is perhaps so that regular software development is not a good career path for autists anymore because of the shift from hard to soft skills that has happened in the last 15 years. Maybe other avenues are more suitable, like book writing, lecturing or something.