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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

#291

Post by shiroiuma »

winternett wrote: post #218
lordnacho wrote: post #12

I 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…

McDonalds and Taco Bell tried to get rid of their "soft skills" (AKA customer service} and look how they're doing right now... Endless stores that all look & feel the same -- uncomfortable seats, no happy families around for longer than 10 minutes, longer drive-thru lines, and impersonal & impatient staff that avoids customers like the plague. Evangelists will preach Ai because it's good for corporations that don't c…

>McDonalds and Taco Bell tried to get rid of their "soft skills" (AKA customer service} and look how they're doing right now... Endless stores that all look & feel the same -- uncomfortable seats, no happy families around for longer than 10 minutes, longer drive-thru lines, and impersonal & impatient staff that avoids customers like the plague.

How's their profitability? Long drive-thru lines sounds like business is doing well.

This reminds me of people complaining about Windows, with its ads and AI and tracking and such. They don't like it as users, but the company is making plenty of money, so of course it's the right thing to do.

Re: Software engineers can no longer neglect their soft skills

#292

Post by ragall »

shiroiuma wrote: post #289
ragall wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen that plenty of times. I suspect that you haven't seen it because you live in a place with high cost of living, which induces a high turnover in personnel, or perhaps you've been working in very dynamic markets such as SaaS. When I was starting my career in Europe as freelance sysadmin, I worked several times for small companies that were definitely not at the forefront of technology, were specialised in som…

>I worked several times for small companies that were definitely not at the forefront of technology, were specialised in some small niche and pretty small (10-15 engineers), but all its engineers had been there for 10-20 years. They pretty well paid compared to the rest of the country This isn't possible in the USA. Companies like this (small, and not in tech hub cities) always try to take advantage of their location…

I agree that something like that is very unlikely in the US, which is why so many people in this thread (I presume Americans) were incredulous as to whether that was even possible, but elsewhere in Europe good software and electronic/electrical engineers can be making very good money for the local standards in stable jobs, while at the same time being paid a lot less than they would be in a similar job in one of the US major tech hubs.

Re: Software engineers can no longer neglect their soft skills

#293

Post by ragall »

ethbr1 wrote: post #284
woooooo wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I hear you and I also added a parenthetical that the incentives aren't always the same. In an organization of high-minded individuals, the information asymmetry goes both ways, I've been a manager and a dev and I tried to be high-minded and do my best to smooth that assymetry for the greater good in both roles. But sometimes, especially the last 3-4 years since it got tough, there's a lot of people trying to ho…

Absolutely! The "How does a bad manager with a good team ever get identified/fired?" problem is something more companies should have an answer to. That's why I think skip-levels check-ins and direct reports regularly anonymously rating their manager (via HR) should be the starting place at all companies. Otherwise, toxic (or just underperforming) managers stay in their positions longer than is good for the company.

Most employees are incapable of rating their manager. They can complain or praise, but they're not competent to judge whether the manager is competent.

There's an interesting parallel to the advice often given for "lean" startups, of never taking seriously the customers' feature requests, only their complaints. Most customers know their own pain points but aren't capable of suggesting good general solutions that can be incorporated into a product.

Re: Software engineers can no longer neglect their soft skills

#294

Post by zombot »

benttoothpaste wrote: post #58

I've heard this "soft skills are the only skills that matter" thing throughout my entire career but these days this is indeed greatly amplified. Our CEO started sharing screenshots of his xitter/linkedin feeds and most of them contain wisdoms like "Opus 4.5 is better than 90% of talent". There is also longer form business fan fiction. It usually follows this template: there is a hero - a humble manager/sales person,…

Going above and beyond is hardly ever rewarded in my experience, except when it happens in the stupidest way, like producing more technical debt faster.

Re: Software engineers can no longer neglect their soft skills

#295

Post by layer8 »

win311fwg wrote: post #166
layer8 wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you keep track of tasks that need to be done, of reported bugs and feature requests?

Previously? There was an understanding of the problem trying to be solved. The gaps left the pangs of "this isn't right". Now I have no way to know where things stand. It's all disconnected and abstracted. The ticket may suggest that something is done, but if the customer isn't happy, it isn't actually. Worse, now we have people adding tickets without any intent to do the work themselves and there isn't a great way t…

You must be working in projects with a relatively small number of “problems to be solved” at any given time, and with the problems having relatively low complexity. In general there’s no way to keep everything in your head and not organize and track things across the team. That doesn’t mean that a lot of communication doesn’t still have to happen within the team and with the customers. Tickets don’t replace communication. But you have to write down the results of the communication, and the progress on tasks and issues that may span weeks or months.

Re: Software engineers can no longer neglect their soft skills

#296

Post by win311fwg »

layer8 wrote: post #295
win311fwg wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Previously? There was an understanding of the problem trying to be solved. The gaps left the pangs of "this isn't right". Now I have no way to know where things stand. It's all disconnected and abstracted. The ticket may suggest that something is done, but if the customer isn't happy, it isn't actually. Worse, now we have people adding tickets without any intent to do the work themselves and there isn't a great way t…

You must be working in projects with a relatively small number of “problems to be solved” at any given time, and with the problems having relatively low complexity. In general there’s no way to keep everything in your head and not organize and track things across the team. That doesn’t mean that a lot of communication doesn’t still have to happen within the team and with the customers. Tickets don’t replace communica…

> In general there’s no way to keep everything in your head

I imagine everyone's capacity is different, but you wouldn't want anyone with a low capacity on your team, so that's moot. Frankly, there is no need to go beyond what you can keep in your head, unless your personal capacity is naturally limited I guess, because as soon as you progress in some way the world has changed and you have to reevaluate everything anyway, so there was no reason to worry about the stuff you can't focus on to begin with.

Re: Software engineers can no longer neglect their soft skills

#297

Post by lolive »

kube-system wrote: post #277
lolive wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bizness needs to understand that scalable reliable durable solutions take time to craft properly. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9wn633vl_c

Engineers need to understand that those requirements don’t apply to every project. https://res.cloudinary.com/monday-blogs/w_1000,h_561,c_fit/f...

How does an engineer know that he is involved in a bozo-driven PoC or in a technical deathtrap that will end up as the core business of the company?

Re: Software engineers can no longer neglect their soft skills

#298

Post by marcosdumay »

lolive wrote: post #297
kube-system wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Engineers need to understand that those requirements don’t apply to every project. https://res.cloudinary.com/monday-blogs/w_1000,h_561,c_fit/f...

How does an engineer know that he is involved in a bozo-driven PoC or in a technical deathtrap that will end up as the core business of the company?

Oh, that's easy. Can you point any real person waiting to use the thing?

In fact, that's probably the easiest question to answer on this entire discussion.

Re: Software engineers can no longer neglect their soft skills

#299

Post by whstl »

shiroiuma wrote: post #288
whstl wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very often in my experience, people with too many soft skills and too little hard skills are at best dead weights, at worst con men, which are a special kind of asshole you REALLY don't want to deal with. Of course the best is to have both hard/soft skills, which is not as rare as people assume.

>Very often in my experience, people with too many soft skills and too little hard skills are at best dead weights, at worst con men No, these are the people who should be moved into management positions. They can spend time on all the soft-skill stuff that ICs don't want to spend time on, like dealing with upper management, leading meetings, etc. They don't need to have the best hard skills, just enough to understan…

I completely disagree. Managers who don't have knowledge can do way too much damage.

Re: Software engineers can no longer neglect their soft skills

#300

Post by kube-system »

lolive wrote: post #297
kube-system wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Engineers need to understand that those requirements don’t apply to every project. https://res.cloudinary.com/monday-blogs/w_1000,h_561,c_fit/f...

How does an engineer know that he is involved in a bozo-driven PoC or in a technical deathtrap that will end up as the core business of the company?

Again, by communicating. If someone doesn't know what they are building, who they are building it for, and why -- then they do not have a solid grasp of the requirements.
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