Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’ve been hearing this since the 90’s.
I feel like it's a myth promoted by engineers with poor soft skills to justify themselves never learning said skills.
How do you learn soft skills? Maybe you have a point there
Software engineers can no longer neglect their soft skills
251–260 of 304 posts
Re: Software engineers can no longer neglect their soft skills
#252I don't think it has ever been the case that you could neglect soft skills. You will hear this over and over, in every area of every business: people become successful by adjusting their behaviour to what works for the business. Sometimes this is called being a slick politician, sometimes it is called avoiding getting bogged down in politics. But it's never been the case that a dev could just focus on technical thing…
>>But it's never been the case that a dev could just focus on technical things and not spend any time figuring out the context they are working in, and behaving accordingly. I've worked with plenty of programmers who were absolutely insufferable human beings but were some kind of supernatural coders who were doing the work of 20 people or were literally the only people who could understand the maths or physics or ren…
>>>absolutely insufferable human beings but were some kind of supernatural coders who were doing the work of 20 people
I don’t at all condone being that guy. However….
It’s pretty amazing what an engineer can accomplish if you can actually get into a flow state because people are too afraid/intimidated to interrupt you every 10 minutes and you aren’t being invited to endless (and mostly useless) meetings all day.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Re: Software engineers can no longer neglect their soft skills
#253I don't think it has ever been the case that you could neglect soft skills. You will hear this over and over, in every area of every business: people become successful by adjusting their behaviour to what works for the business. Sometimes this is called being a slick politician, sometimes it is called avoiding getting bogged down in politics. But it's never been the case that a dev could just focus on technical thing…
Also the vast majority of sw engineers just have average soft skills. There is still a difference to sales and we certainly do not need any more pretentious behaviour in technical discussions. Yes, VCs will require you to advertise yourself, but I think many also just want a realistic approach about a potential business ventures.
The most practical problem sw engineers have here that they waste hours on some frivolous technical solution that could have been cleared up with a pragmatic approach through a three minute call.
That engineers aren't people persons is a stereotype. There are as many "autists" in the social sciences. Yes, I know I shouldn't use that word for anything that is not a pathological diagnosis.
Re: Software engineers can no longer neglect their soft skills
#254I don't think it has ever been the case that you could neglect soft skills. You will hear this over and over, in every area of every business: people become successful by adjusting their behaviour to what works for the business. Sometimes this is called being a slick politician, sometimes it is called avoiding getting bogged down in politics. But it's never been the case that a dev could just focus on technical thing…
> But it's never been the case that a dev could just focus on technical things and not spend any time figuring out the context they are working in, and behaving accordingly. This is factually wrong. Until a few decades ago in tech, and it's still like that in most economic sectors and I dare say most countries, it's the managers that take the role of figuring out the organization and interfacing with other teams. An…
Yes, but it goes more far than that:
You will have to participate in meetings, you will be asked to joing for a lunch, you will be asked to contact a customer/devcontact there, you will be asked to attend some events, you will be asked to communicate with others etc.
You are not existing as isolated particle in vacuum behind your screen :-)
Re: Software engineers can no longer neglect their soft skills
#255I remember a day at the office of a former job; there was one guy, the "chief developer", technically solid, but he was a pure a**** when interacting with others; it was quite known that he was a "difficult person".
One day, I opened the door to another floor and he approached the opened door: I saw him with two things in his hands: the one was a Leitz folder, and in the other hand he had a cup of coffee - so full that the coffee was kept in the cup already only because of the surface tension of the liquid.
I held the door opened, looked at him, a small smile and noded - he didnt show any reaction (not even think of a "thank you" or similar)
Re: Software engineers can no longer neglect their soft skills
#256What about: tech managers can no longer hide their poor or nonexistent management skills.
Re: Software engineers can no longer neglect their soft skills
#257I don't think it has ever been the case that you could neglect soft skills. You will hear this over and over, in every area of every business: people become successful by adjusting their behaviour to what works for the business. Sometimes this is called being a slick politician, sometimes it is called avoiding getting bogged down in politics. But it's never been the case that a dev could just focus on technical thing…
Also the vast majority of sw engineers just have average soft skills. There is still a difference to sales and we certainly do not need any more pretentious behaviour in technical discussions. Yes, VCs will require you to advertise yourself, but I think many also just want a realistic approach about a potential business ventures. The most practical problem sw engineers have here that they waste hours on some frivolou…
Soft skills, in the context it's used here, include communication skills.
A key part of communication is being able to communicate ideas with someone not like you (different expertise, background, touchpoints).
Imho, a lot of software developers suck at that. (Obligatory: 'I talk to the customers so the engineers don't have to')
To the article's point, this becomes an increasingly valuable and critical skill the closer software development moves to the original requesting users. Or the closer the ability to code moves to people who were already talking to users.
Personally? I view myself as a problem solver: whether I solve a problem with code, a new technology, a conversation with a colleague, a deep dive discovery session with a SME, or a month-long series of political meetings with conflicting stakeholders, I don't care.
Re: Software engineers can no longer neglect their soft skills
#258Earlier quoted context omitted.
> But it's never been the case that a dev could just focus on technical things and not spend any time figuring out the context they are working in, and behaving accordingly. This is factually wrong. Until a few decades ago in tech, and it's still like that in most economic sectors and I dare say most countries, it's the managers that take the role of figuring out the organization and interfacing with other teams. An…
Yes, but it goes more far than that: You will have to participate in meetings, you will be asked to joing for a lunch, you will be asked to contact a customer/devcontact there, you will be asked to attend some events, you will be asked to communicate with others etc. You are not existing as isolated particle in vacuum behind your screen :-)
IDK, at many large orgs...there are developers that essentially communicate through "tickets" and "their lead"... and Def never talk to "business" people or customers. It's not very rare if you get a large enough org.
Re: Software engineers can no longer neglect their soft skills
#259Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's the vibe coders who would love to pretend that the opposite end of the spectrum from them is "artisinal coding." They honestly have no idea what "software engineering" in a professional context even looks like. So they come up with this prattle.
The jargon is getting more & more obtuse every year... Also, a major feature of "vibe coding" now is the rough edges on UI design that don't make sense at all... It's pretty obvious that code bases aren't evolving because these systems can't handle complex prompts while retaining features from prior releases, and it seems like functional testing for releases has now become the kid who can't speak that fell down a wel…
Vibe coders are the new circa-2000 cross-trained front end web developers.
Without industry experience and/or software engineering education, they zoom past a lot of hard-won lessons.
E.g. the node.js packaging ecosystem wouldn't have committed so many own-goals if it'd been designed by people with more historical awareness
In time, vibe coders will rediscover test driven development, but until then you'll have to deal with watching monkeys try to construct buildings by stomping hard and frequently enough that the atoms self-assemble.
Re: Software engineers can no longer neglect their soft skills
#260Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, but it goes more far than that: You will have to participate in meetings, you will be asked to joing for a lunch, you will be asked to contact a customer/devcontact there, you will be asked to attend some events, you will be asked to communicate with others etc. You are not existing as isolated particle in vacuum behind your screen :-)
IDK, at many large orgs...there are developers that essentially communicate through "tickets" and "their lead"... and Def never talk to "business" people or customers. It's not very rare if you get a large enough org.
In other large orgs, the managers are in a parallel universe playing status games while the devs self-organize to get anything done. The soft skills involved in doing that wind up being completely invisible to the status universe.