Undervalued Engineering Skills: Writing Well • Hacker News Board

Re: Undervalued Engineering Skills: Writing Well

#171

Post by mlthoughts2018 » Fri, May 31, 2019, 5:47 PM UTC

beat wrote: post #116

mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #92

I actually have found that if you are an engineer who displays well-rounded skills in multiple disciplines, like business acumen, communication, writing and conflict management, this causes managers and non-engineers around you to view you as a threat, and they will work harder to undermine you and try to box you into a “engineer only” label. Above all, you won’t be rewarded for these other skills, despite how vital…

Ugh. In that case, you should move to someplace that values those skills.

It has been this way at every job (7 companies now, ranging from huge & bureaucratic to medium & popular to super new start-up). Whether it has been at a major tech company or the latest & greatest start-up, people have universally acted this way everywhere, often while talking at length about how their company culture causes them to not act this way.

Re: Undervalued Engineering Skills: Writing Well

#172

Post by dsign » Fri, May 31, 2019, 5:48 PM UTC

Why is this skill considered "undervalued"? Could it be attributed to the gluttony of the industry for engineers? I have been in a couple of interviews to job applicants who couldn't bother less to fix typos and grammar in the first sentence of their CVs. The mere fact that we bothered to interview those candidates is disturbing.

Re: Undervalued Engineering Skills: Writing Well

#173

Post by abhishekjha » Fri, May 31, 2019, 5:50 PM UTC

jsty wrote: post #4

I agree with the author that writing is one of the most undervalued skills for SWEs, but for a completely different reason - it forces you to reason things through properly, even if nobody else will ever read what you write. Writing a couple of pages of design docs or an Amazon-style 6 pager or whatever might take a few days of work, but can save weeks or more of wasted implementation time when you realise your syste…

>Writing a couple of pages of design docs or an Amazon-style 6 pager

While we are on this topic, how does one design things? I am very new to this and would love some references. Mostly I implement other’s design in code but I have never designed anything myself.

I am always fascinated by the idea of writing an RFC like document but even that seems a little too far fetched for me as of now.

Re: Undervalued Engineering Skills: Writing Well

#174

Post by kernx16 » Fri, May 31, 2019, 5:50 PM UTC

dsign wrote: post #172

Why is this skill considered "undervalued"? Could it be attributed to the gluttony of the industry for engineers? I have been in a couple of interviews to job applicants who couldn't bother less to fix typos and grammar in the first sentence of their CVs. The mere fact that we bothered to interview those candidates is disturbing.

Was this rhetorical or are you actually confused as to why this skill is considered undervalued?

Re: Undervalued Engineering Skills: Writing Well

#175

Post by tomfern » Fri, May 31, 2019, 5:50 PM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #10

jsty wrote: post #4

I agree with the author that writing is one of the most undervalued skills for SWEs, but for a completely different reason - it forces you to reason things through properly, even if nobody else will ever read what you write. Writing a couple of pages of design docs or an Amazon-style 6 pager or whatever might take a few days of work, but can save weeks or more of wasted implementation time when you realise your syste…

“Writing is nature's way of telling us how lousy our thinking is.” ― Leslie Lamport

I'm stealing that quote, it's so good. I'm always surprised how ideas that sounded wonderful in my head turn into garbage when written down.

Re: Undervalued Engineering Skills: Writing Well

#176

Post by syndacks » Fri, May 31, 2019, 5:51 PM UTC

I'm surprised this article doesn't suggest reading books. The best way to improve your writing is to read good writing.

Re: Undervalued Engineering Skills: Writing Well

#177

Post by sam0x17 » Fri, May 31, 2019, 5:52 PM UTC

Right up there with "communicating well", and the often important "managing the expectations of non-technical stakeholders"

Re: Undervalued Engineering Skills: Writing Well

#178

Post by sam0x17 » Fri, May 31, 2019, 5:53 PM UTC

dsign wrote: post #172

Why is this skill considered "undervalued"? Could it be attributed to the gluttony of the industry for engineers? I have been in a couple of interviews to job applicants who couldn't bother less to fix typos and grammar in the first sentence of their CVs. The mere fact that we bothered to interview those candidates is disturbing.

There are literally people who say "I hate verbal/writing stuff, I'll become an engineer instead" during their undergraduate education, little knowing that at least in industry these skills are critical.

Re: Undervalued Engineering Skills: Writing Well

#179

Post by microcolonel » Fri, May 31, 2019, 5:53 PM UTC

abhishekjha wrote: post #173

jsty wrote: post #4

I agree with the author that writing is one of the most undervalued skills for SWEs, but for a completely different reason - it forces you to reason things through properly, even if nobody else will ever read what you write. Writing a couple of pages of design docs or an Amazon-style 6 pager or whatever might take a few days of work, but can save weeks or more of wasted implementation time when you realise your syste…

>Writing a couple of pages of design docs or an Amazon-style 6 pager While we are on this topic, how does one design things? I am very new to this and would love some references. Mostly I implement other’s design in code but I have never designed anything myself. I am always fascinated by the idea of writing an RFC like document but even that seems a little too far fetched for me as of now.

I think a lot of mature RFCs are based on prototypes. In my experience, prototyping is the first step in design; I know I've seen "designers" and "architects" hide that they prototyped something before writing the document they've been asked to. I know at least one did this to give the impression that they were able to express it fully-formed from whole cloth.

Sometimes you can get away with documenting a design based on prior art, but without creating your own prototypes.

For the most part, rather than the first, good design documents are the the second or later expression of a design.

Added: I think this ties into what jsty is saying. Good designs tend not to be the first iteration of an idea, regardless whether the iterations were intentional design, or refactoring.

IIRC, Joe Armstrong (RIP) was a firm believer in the "write it once, then throw it out and rewrite it at least once" pattern of development. I think that whether you're writing a design document or a new version of some portion of code, you are refining a design, and that tends to help.

Re: Undervalued Engineering Skills: Writing Well

#180

Post by Maro » Fri, May 31, 2019, 5:54 PM UTC

This resonates with me. My writing is clear and concise, I'm proud of it, and it pays off because I can communicate effectively.

I'm not sure I agree with the "undervalued", in so far that I see a _lot_ of people who are not able to write clearly, and they get ahead and along just fine. Many executives who I worked with wrote terrible emails (sometimes they leave out the negation, so I'm guessing whether they mean X or not-X), and they're super successful, in so far as their companies are successful / they are in high positions.

Sometimes the Amazon protocol comes up (before a meeting, the organizer submits the topic in writing, everybody has to read it before), and I always cringe - in my experience most people just can't write a clear 2 page document [or can't be bothered]. I would love it tough.