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Software engineers can no longer neglect their soft skills

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Re: Software engineers can no longer neglect their soft skills

#21

Post by Xelbair »

qoez wrote: post #18
CrulesAll wrote: post #4

Software 'engineers' are going to have learn the hard skills that they have gotten by without thus far. The ones who were never engineers in the first place will have to learn 'soft skills' because they are incapable. I believe @ Tsoding put it best: The only thing AI will do, in so far as coding goes, is to remove a lot of people who should never have been in it in the first place.

I think this is kinda sad. I always thought coding was so beautiful for creating a (good paying) job for socially awkward people on the spectrum who pre-coding was considered dorks and went into idk what but probably some unsatisfying job. It seems like we're heading back to that which makes me sad and worried about the highly functioning autistic population.

I am sorry but is being employed a job or a daycare?

Not only this is extremely patronizing towards all people on spectrum, but at the same time extremely hurtful statement for people who are treating employment as a job(ie - most of population).

And what are you going to say to people who are stuck in low-end jobs?

Re: Software engineers can no longer neglect their soft skills

#22

Post by joshuaisaact »

CrulesAll wrote: post #14
joshuaisaact wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I may have misread your comment, but I don't think soft skills are a 'narrow thing' at all. Effective communication, building trust, bringing people along with you - these are fundamental to being an effective human, not some niche pivot.

"Effective communication, building trust, bringing people along with you" That's a David Brent powerpoint presentation.

Fair. I'll retire 'bringing people along with you' before it ends up on a motivational poster with a stock photo of a rowing team.

Though you're right that there's no I in team. There is one in AI though, which probably tells us something.

Re: Software engineers can no longer neglect their soft skills

#23

Post by pgwhalen »

CrulesAll wrote: post #10
flitzofolov wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate on this? What are some examples of skills you think are now essential, that prior have been taken for granted or obviated in some way?

Beyond engineering itself, strictly computer engineering? How many coders have no idea what goes on behind an IDE. Have not even the slightest notion how a computer works. Who thinks building a computer means watching a Youtube video and buying ready made parts, putting them together, and then think they should be employed by NASA. To begin: Math, Linux, Devops, C, and Assembly. Not a youtube video. Not arithmetic. L…

I agree with your original post that the need for hard skills will persist, but I see it in the other direction: software engineers are going to have to get better at thinking in larger abstractions, not deeper understanding of the stack. Those who can only solve problems locally and repeat the patterns they've seen before rather than create new patterns from building blocks are the ones who are going to struggle.

Re: Software engineers can no longer neglect their soft skills

#24

Post by Yokohiii »

In a team environment, half of the job is communication.

That LLMs do a better job if you know what you are asking for is old news.

But to be honest, I usually don't care to write properly into an LLM prompt. An LLM will ignore grammar and form and just extract the essence. If I make an actual mistake I will notice quickly and fix it. If I'd send slack messages like that to an peer, they'd either mock me or simply think I am dumb. We also know the stories about people that use LLMs for any communication or anything they write. Probably for the exact reason that being lazy with writing is acceptable now. My call is that writing skill will decline, not improve. This could probably be the case for anything that people use LLMs as a proxy for.

Re: Software engineers can no longer neglect their soft skills

#25

Post by CrulesAll »

pgwhalen wrote: post #23
CrulesAll wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Beyond engineering itself, strictly computer engineering? How many coders have no idea what goes on behind an IDE. Have not even the slightest notion how a computer works. Who thinks building a computer means watching a Youtube video and buying ready made parts, putting them together, and then think they should be employed by NASA. To begin: Math, Linux, Devops, C, and Assembly. Not a youtube video. Not arithmetic. L…

I agree with your original post that the need for hard skills will persist, but I see it in the other direction: software engineers are going to have to get better at thinking in larger abstractions, not deeper understanding of the stack. Those who can only solve problems locally and repeat the patterns they've seen before rather than create new patterns from building blocks are the ones who are going to struggle.

"software engineers are going to have to get better at thinking in larger abstractions" ........Math was first on my list. I don't know how else to say that.

Re: Software engineers can no longer neglect their soft skills

#26

Post by echelon »

flitzofolov wrote: post #6
CrulesAll wrote: post #4

Software 'engineers' are going to have learn the hard skills that they have gotten by without thus far. The ones who were never engineers in the first place will have to learn 'soft skills' because they are incapable. I believe @ Tsoding put it best: The only thing AI will do, in so far as coding goes, is to remove a lot of people who should never have been in it in the first place.

Can you elaborate on this? What are some examples of skills you think are now essential, that prior have been taken for granted or obviated in some way?

Read further into the comment.

Your $300k+ TC job is going away. The only way you'll make the same take home is if you provide more value.

You can be a robotic IC, but you won't be any better than a beginner with Claude Code. You have to level up your communication and organizational value to stay at the top.

Everyone has to wear the cloth of a senior engineer now to simply stay in place. If you can't write well, communicate well, plan and organize, you're not providing more value than a Claude-enhanced junior.

Re: Software engineers can no longer neglect their soft skills

#27

Post by shevy-java »

> Today, I use Claude Code for almost all non-trivial programming tasks and have spent $500+ on it just last December.

Truthfully, I don't want to get advice from people who become addicted to AI, sorry. The money investment that person did, already leaves me with tons of questions.

Re: Software engineers can no longer neglect their soft skills

#28

Post by karczex »

So I opened this article to find out at the very beginning, that author put's a lot of money to AI providers... So probably also used it to write this article. So, according to the rule "text which is not worth of spending time on writing is also no worth of reading" I closed it.

Re: Software engineers can no longer neglect their soft skills

#29

Post by pavel_lishin »

karczex wrote: post #28

So I opened this article to find out at the very beginning, that author put's a lot of money to AI providers... So probably also used it to write this article. So, according to the rule "text which is not worth of spending time on writing is also no worth of reading" I closed it.

I found out that the author of a blog post paid a maid to clean their house, and sends their laundry out. Therefore, the blog post was written by the maid, or one of the laundromat employees. So I closed it.

Re: Software engineers can no longer neglect their soft skills

#30

Post by CrulesAll »

lolive wrote: post #19

Be careful, engineers, when interacting with soft skill experts not to join their reality distortion field where it’s all about coordination, alignment, bizness strategy, clever planning. Whereas the real stuffs are just implémentation details, quickly solved. In the end, they might convince you that 2+2=5.

Wait until you try to explain basic concepts to such people! What's annoying is HR employing more of these people and not understanding why the dial does not move. What is baffling and infuriating is when such people are put in management. MBAs will destroy Western business eventually(those who tag an MBA onto a STEM qualification are not as bad but still infected.)
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