Soft Skills Engineering is a weekly advice podcast for software developers. We answer questions about
all the stuff you didn't realize you needed to know about being an engineer:
pay raises
hiring
going into management
annoying co-workers
quitting your job
meetings
micromanagers
installing a ball pit in your office
and much much more...
For answers to these and other questions, our hosts Dave Smith and
Jamison Dance are here to help.
Why should you listen?
Soft Skills Engineering listeners are awesome. Here's what they are saying about the podcast.
Jack says:
Not only did Soft Skills Engineering help me land my first gig, I also used your advice to negotiate a $10,000 raise!
I love your podcast and will continue to heartily recommend you to everyone I know!
Hdennen says:
Facing a 9 hour drive, I grabbed a bunch of podcasts to listen to. I don't even know what the other ones are.
Seriously, this podcast is full of massively helpful and relevant content from two people who are experienced, funny, and insightful.
Saad says:
Listening to Soft Skills Engineering has completely shifted my thoughts on what it means to be an engineer.
It’s probably one of the more useful things I’ve gained during my time at Amazon.
It definitely helped me grow, and I’m totally indebted to you for that.
In episode 19, Jamison and Dave answer these questions:
Would you ever fire someone over a coding mistake? For example, should you empathize with ignorance and explain how SQL injection works or is the mistake so basic as to be intolerable. Would you change your answer if the mistake was found during a code review or found as the source of a data breach?
How do you positively represent the desire to be demoted? I am called a ‘senior engineer’, but I got that way because of null instead of actual skill. I would like to be a senior engineer at some point, but I would be a better one if I travel more where I have seniors to look up to, established processes etc rather than stressing about defining everything myself; but that’s a weird thing to say to a current or potential boss and is hard to do without also volunteering for a pay cut.
In episode 18, Jamison and Dave answer these questions:
I’m a computer science major who still has a couple years of school left. I also have a part time job doing web development. I love what I’m learning and doing at work to the point that I question if it’s worth investing two more years into school. How would you counsel someone in my position?
From listener Antonio: How do I prepare for an interview?
In episode 16, Jamison and Dave answer these questions:
From listener David Renne: What’s the best way to talk to random LinkedIn recruiters, recruiter calls and emails? I prefer the reverse lookup apps to determine if an unrecognized phone number looks like a recruiter it goes straight to voice mail during business hours.
As a mid-level dev, i sometimes get frustrated when i try learning new things. how can i be more comfortable as a beginner? Sometimes i get frustrated with myself when i don’t immediately grasp something that i perceive to be very simple. It makes me less motivated to try new things and take risks on new technology, and really feeds my impostor syndrome.
In episode 15, Jamison and Dave join Brad Green, engineering director at Google and Angular team manager, to answer these questions:
How do I deal with non-technical people at work? I often get questions that put me into a position where I have to explain really basic concepts to non-technical people like sales and marketing. They seem to rely on me like a crutch, and it gets tiring to have to explain things over and over. How do I strike the right balance of being helpful, but not so helpful that they become dependent on me? I want to be helpful, but I don’t want to spend 90% of my time acting as tech support.
How do I keep up with new technology but avoid being sucked in by hype?
In episode 14, Jamison and Dave answer these questions:
Since I am primarily a web developer, I often find there is a bit of developer prejudice, against web developers from software engineers of other categories. Often I find they think I am not capable of anything other than jquery dom manipulations, and talk down at me like I wouldn’t understand their expertly setup mysql queries. As it turns out, I too have my CS degree, and start new projects in all kinds of programming languages just to learn them. Any tips for breaking the web dev stereotypes?
How to deal with legacy code and legacy coders? The code was probably good once, but it is impossible to maintain and doesn’t work on new hardware. You know the best approach is to scrap it and start from scratch but the original coder is resistant and wants to find a way to “make it work”. What do you do? In my situation, this legacy coder is a peer, and the only person above us doesn’t want to take a side on the argument, so we are left at a stale-mate.
In episode 13, Jamison and Dave answer these questions:
What should you do about a boss, or in my case ‘solution architect’, who won’t push back to the client and just keeps sacrificing quality of the product to push more features out?
What’s the difference between contract and permanent positions?
In episode 11, Jamison and Dave answer these questions:
I’m looking for a new job. How do I negotiate to get a better offer?
How do you deal constructively with a boss who is well-intentioned, reasonably nice and intelligent, but incompetent, oblivious, and who has minimal to no oversight on their work performance?
