this post was submitted on 27 Mar 2025
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This is just a meme, but I find that communication is an underrated skill among software engineers.
Personally, I'm trying to get better at it.
The problem, which is sometimes too common, is if they have too good communication skills combined with lacking technical skills. These are the ones that BS their way up the ladder, while screwing over the people that count on them, because their code sucks (the actual important part, for a SW engineer).
But yeah if you're both good technically and a communicator, you're pretty damn valuable. Personally, I'd be willing to muscle through terrible comm skills if the technical talent that matters was there.
I’m what you describe: my technical skills aren’t top notch but I communicate well. But I don’t bullshit my way up any ladders, but try and do what I do best; that is, facilitate the communication between people who might not be able to communicate with each other.
Not many in my teams could put a finger on what exactly I did, but all agreed I was fairly valuable and things became worse when I left.
Were you a people person, dammit
See: Being Glue
it's about over analyzing your current tasks and over describing common minutiae.
instead of: "I worked on restoring a database connection"
it becomes: "I worked with the DBAs, networking, and OpSec to restore the connection and ensure that connectivity remains up and secure. I also plan on working on adding proper monitoring to alert when this happens again. I should be done in a few days."
then in a few days it becomes: "ran into scheduling conflicts with the monitoring team and will need it push it out until next week. Until then I'll continue the monitor the situation and let you know if anything new comes up."