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Undervalued Engineering Skills: Writing Well

blog.pragmaticengineer.com

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Re: Undervalued Engineering Skills: Writing Well

#131

Post by sixstringtheory »

everyone wrote: post #81
tombert wrote: post #6

I do find it a bit bizarre that the otherwise smart people that I work with, with English as their first language, will often resort to writing emails and documentation like a 14-year-old on AIM. I'm obviously much more forgiving of people that had to learn English as adults, but somewhat paradoxically I find that they typically write a lot more comprehensibly than most of the native-speaking engineers. I'm hardly Jo…

"when r u going to do this?" Why is that annoying? Its perfectly clear and concise. Good writing imo.

If I had a manager send this to me, it would impress in my mind a comical and degrading image of them hunting and pecking for keys. Doesn’t conjure much respect in an industry where computers are the main tool, IMO.

Re: Undervalued Engineering Skills: Writing Well

#132

Post by ragona »

This falls into the category of a much wider undervalued engineering skill -- communicating well. The best engineers tend to be excellent communicators. There is a whole group of extremely talented programmers who just don't understand why they aren't getting ahead, and nine times out of ten the answer is that they suck at communicating.

Re: Undervalued Engineering Skills: Writing Well

#133

Post by duxup »

funkymike wrote: post #69
mabbo wrote: post #27

Amazon is obsessive about this stuff. I'm surprised the article never mentions it. There are internal classes offered on writing better documents (and it's a great class). There's videos, guides, documents, everything. Writing well at Amazon is key to a successful career here. Got a project idea? Write a very good 1-pager explaining it and you've got a much higher chance of it actually happening. Want to share a desi…

> I've been in meetings that start with 15 minutes of silent reading, then 45 minutes of discussion. No PowerPoint presenting. I wish this could happen where I am. No one wants to bother reading anything ahead of the meeting to be prepared for a discussion. Then the same people don't have the patience to let the group review the material during the meeting before starting the discussion.

I WANT TO read ahead, but nobody tells me even what meetings are about despite having company wide meetings on effective meeting and the first point was about setting agendas and seating meeting goals and topics.

Re: Undervalued Engineering Skills: Writing Well

#134

Post by dkasper »

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #121
funkymike wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've been in meetings that start with 15 minutes of silent reading, then 45 minutes of discussion. No PowerPoint presenting. I wish this could happen where I am. No one wants to bother reading anything ahead of the meeting to be prepared for a discussion. Then the same people don't have the patience to let the group review the material during the meeting before starting the discussion.

People won't read ahead, so you all have to get up to speed on the doc, during the meeting, then some jerk manager who is always late comes in and makes us all repeat the same discussion. The meeting ends up taking all the time just to cover what is in the doc but no decision gets made because we ran out of time.

Sounds like you need to change teams.

Re: Undervalued Engineering Skills: Writing Well

#135

Post by Consultant32452 »

tombert wrote: post #6

I do find it a bit bizarre that the otherwise smart people that I work with, with English as their first language, will often resort to writing emails and documentation like a 14-year-old on AIM. I'm obviously much more forgiving of people that had to learn English as adults, but somewhat paradoxically I find that they typically write a lot more comprehensibly than most of the native-speaking engineers. I'm hardly Jo…

I recommend taking the opposite approach. I'm in a leadership role and I model my communication after the audience. This is a social bonding technique, it results in people liking you more. This is everything from formal vs informal language, mirroring body language, and using their preferred communications protocol: email, IM, phone, face to face. Any time someone has a specific quirk in their communication, instead of being annoyed, see it as an opportunity to make a new ally by modeling after them.

Re: Undervalued Engineering Skills: Writing Well

#136

Post by Bekwnn »

kashyapc wrote: post #112

Especially for those who work remotely, I (English is my third language) can't overstate the importance of deliberately working on writing skills. As remotees, we are often judged by our words, whether we like it or not. A couple of recommendations: • Many here might've already come across it, but is always worth bringing up: William Zinsser's, On Writing Well . In which, he urges us to write with "clarity, simplicit…

I'd also recommend "It Was the Best of Sentences, It Was the Worst of Sentences" for some easily digestible writing on how to write easily digestible writing. It's probably one of the most useful type of writing skill to have as an engineer.

Re: Undervalued Engineering Skills: Writing Well

#137

Post by justin66 »

enriquto wrote: post #14
tombert wrote: post #6

I do find it a bit bizarre that the otherwise smart people that I work with, with English as their first language, will often resort to writing emails and documentation like a 14-year-old on AIM. I'm obviously much more forgiving of people that had to learn English as adults, but somewhat paradoxically I find that they typically write a lot more comprehensibly than most of the native-speaking engineers. I'm hardly Jo…

I used to think like that (being the kid that wrote well in school). But now I'm not so sure anymore... Been humbled too many times by people much, much smarter than me that wrote in smsesque. Have read too many apparently well-written texts that are nothing but bullshit written by ignorants.

> Been humbled too many times by people much, much smarter than me that wrote in smsesque. Have read too many apparently well-written texts that are nothing but bullshit written by ignorants.

I cannot imagine why you found them humbling. Ignorance or lack of skill are forgivable, but poor writing by someone who could do better but just doesn't care about their output or their audience is just lazy. If someone who could do better cannot be trusted with something as simple as writing a coherent message, why would you trust them with anything else?

Re: Undervalued Engineering Skills: Writing Well

#138

Post by rootusrootus »

sixstringtheory wrote: post #83
asark wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. Anti-signal-signals are a thing. "I don't want or need to care how hard it is for you to understand me, so I'm not going to give any thought or effort to making it easier for you" is certainly a kind of signal.

The signal I get from that is arrogance, then. Also, in an industry where “fake it till you make it” is the rallying cry, one shouldn’t appear dumb, lest one actually becomes dumb (at least in the eyes of their colleagues/superiors/reports/clients).

Exactly what came to my mind as well. A lack of care when you write can signal that you do not know how to write well, or it can signal that you don't care to write well. Neither of these are signals I want to send, both harm my reputation.

Re: Undervalued Engineering Skills: Writing Well

#139

Post by turingbike »

aresant wrote: post #34

In a past life I helped optimize >$1b of online transactions as a CRO professional and learning to objectively "write well" could be quantified in two ways: 1) Message Density - there's a great quote attributed to Mark Twain that nails this "If I'd had more time I would have written you a shorter letter". In practice Jeff Bezo's push to making executives build "4 page memos" for meetings outlines this idea clearly: "…

Surprisingly, there are a lot of good tips in the US Gov's Plain Language Guidelines https://www.plainlanguage.gov/guidelines/

Re: Undervalued Engineering Skills: Writing Well

#140

Post by hairofadog »

wazoox wrote: post #52

Writing well can have several meanings. I've found that hilarious bug tickets are much better received and treated than dry ones. Maybe because they get many eyeballs (of the sort that makes all bug shallow). Here is one of the first ticket I wrote in my still current company: Then God appeared to wazoox and told him: "You will not spread your software on the face of the world without properly testing the new feature…

Writing well can have several meanings in literature, but in professional environments I'd argue it has one meaning: Writing well is writing something clear, concise, to the point.

I worked with an engineer who wrote as you describe above ("hilariously") and it became incredibly tiring having to pick out the meaning of each correspondence. They took more time to read, and often important details were overlooked because they were hidden in a joke. I had to reply to nearly every message with my own summary: "So you're saying X, Y, and Z, is that correct?"

Humor is wonderful, even in professional messages, as long as it doesn't detract from the messages being clear, concise, and to the point.

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