Ask HN: How to Speak Confidently?

A. People first, point second. Look, you're an engineer, but in a large professional setting you're really a salesperson too, and at more senior levels you're a salesperson who happened to be an engineer. Lots of comments around empathy here and I can only reinforce this point. It's really crucial to think about what the people in the room want, what their motivations are and how they might react to information. You sound like you're dealing, as an expert, with other experts in smaller groups. You probably know what you're talking about so figuring out why people are motivated to object to you is a useful tool. tl;dr sometimes people are jerks, don't let them shake you!

B. Practice, _and_ simulate. Ok what's the difference here. Practicing is identifying low-risk venues to give presentations in and/or lead discussions. These can be on friendly teams, large group presentations or refereeing a tabletop roleplaying game etc (the last one is REALLY beneficial). Simulating is deriving from the outputs of practice things you'd do differently. After a while one can foresee what could reasonably occur, scenario plan for it and even develop escape hatches. I see my Q/A, body language, three main points in my minds eye and have plans for a couple of contingencies. You can't tell somehow _how_ to develop this but you _will_ develop it after some time working through this.

C. You can control information inputs I find, at least in business settings, that technical experts are often derailed by bringing too much to the table. Their message is often lost, particularly with senior leaders because its surrounded by a morass of apparently helpful information...you're talking to someone and solving their information prioritization problem from the start. It's important to have a clear set of objectives going in and _ethically and truthfully (literally and in the spirit)_ align the information with your point. It's your battlefield, you make it, control the terrain you're operating on.

Additional point, don't be afraid to stop for a 2-3 seconds, compose a thought and then respond. It is a natural breaking tactic I use in meetings and it gets people to engage with you because you've suddenly paused the entire room, at will. Handy trick.

And deliciously cringe inducing!

I have worked with mid sized companies so far, where I have managed to work with it but I will start a FAANG job soon and just don't want to be in this situation when I start, specially when I am going to meet 10x more experienced and sharp engineers.

While balance is key, there is merit to taking steps to stay in this confident body language as it translates to the confidence you have in your beliefs, actions, and statements. People can and do tune into this. When they are feeling a lack of confidence in whatever you are conveying, you surety can put them at ease. The only other thing for you to do is to make sure you are actually correct in being confident, because we should be confident and correct.

A quick note on the flip side of this - if you want to finish your statements and go back and forth, you also have the obligation IMO to state your idea quickly and simply and not ramble on for 5 full minutes about various sub-aspects of your idea. If you do that, then I think there's no problem interrupting you to say that your initial idea won't work at all or could be done in a much better way.

I say that because I hear people do this a lot, and I have no problem interrupting them if it's warranted.