Forget Learning To Code, Bosses Value Collaboration and Communication (fastcompany.com)

The top priority for developing talent is to train for soft skills, according to LinkedIn's 2018 Workplace Learning Report which surveyed more than 4,000 professionals. From a report: The report found that while automation is requiring workers to maintain technical fluency across roles, the rise of machine-led tasks makes it necessary for them to do what machines can't, which is to be adaptable, critical thinkers who can lead and communicate well.

Comments

Great, let me change my resume

[Anonymous Coward]

I took off all my coding skills/accomplishments, and instead have all the buzzwords for working well with others.

Let's see how many offers I get!

Re:Great, let me change my resume

[ShanghaiBill]

1. This LinkedIn report is based on a survey, so it is about what people say, not what they do.
2. Much of the survey concerns hypothetical future actions.
3. The survey questions are not mostly about developers, but about characteristics needed in all employees.
4. The report PDF is displayed with a light gray font on a white background, making it nearly unreadable. This doesn't reflect directly on the contents, but it does show that the team that created it were incompetent at least for the presentation.

Re:Nothing New

[jellomizer]

I think the thing bosses are figuring out, is the technology buzzard of the day isn't the biggest thing. I have professionally used a couple dozen languages over my career. Giving me an other one to work on isn't a big deal. Also a lot of coders are very protective of their code, and hate sharing it. So coding isn't collaborative but work on your own code, and dump it on someone else when you leave, where they look at it, and grumble at all the problems with it and promptly re-write it again.
I think the ability to code for someone applying for a programming position is something we should take for granted, however other factors such as how they will work with others, and make code that will prevent a hand off learning curve, and follow a company standard is important.

If you think if you make your code difficult and only you can manage it. Let me tell you from experience, you are wrong, While it may take some time to get a handle of it, most developers (especially ones practiced at reading others code) can pick up on your crazy mess you made, and continue on without a heartbeat.

I had a rouge employee quit, contact the customers telling them that the company will not be able to keep the product running. Causing the customers to panic. Only for us to put in a update for a feature they were asking months for (which he never had started), as well changing the security settings around to prevent him from causing more damage.

BULLSHIT

[Austerity Empowers]

I keep seeing this, online and in schools. The people involved are doing it wrong. You do not talk to "top execs" about employment skills, it's like talking to lottery winners about how they earned their winning ticket. The vast majority of people aren't going to be top execs and are not going to work for them (directly). Most technical people will not ever be even in middle management, and *we don't want to be*! The money is good, the job is enjoyable and often you can see your family. You don't take the lobotomy until you're 50, and even then only if you are comfortable and have no way out. Similarly automation and AI are not going to be replacing engineering (of any kind), nor serious computer programming tasks any time soon. By the time they do, we aren't going to care anymore. It's way easier to automate a CEO than it is to automate an engineer.

If you come interview with me, at one of the top tier employers in the country, and all you have are softskills...you won't make it through the phone screen. If you interview with my boss's boss's boss's boss (VP I think? Who knows), you won't get the job. That guy has forgot more about semiconductors than most people will ever learn, and he's making billion dollar decisions. He wants facts, he wants you to do the hard technical work for him, and he's going to grill the hell out of you to figure out if you did it, and he can agree with your conclusions. He is then going to soft-skill it in the rarified air of the other top execs from marketing and sales. His boss's boss is the CEO. In a 100k person company, the sphere where soft-skills matter is perhaps 100-300 deep. Those are your odds of success with "soft skills".

If you are perpetually holding out for a senior exec position, then yes, work your soft skills and spend a lot of time networking with rich people. If you want to entrepreneur, soft skill it away, but be able to speak fluent geek. If you actually want to be an engineer or developer, forget it. Get your geek on, learn everything you can. Yes, you will have to work with people, but I promise you, they care way more about your technical acumen and that they can trust you, than your soft skills (to the point they may not trust you if you whip out power point). That's my advice to everyone, including my own children, and advice I follow myself that has kept me employed 20 straight years without ever being laid off or fired, and got me every job I applied for. It's also common sense.

Nothing in life is easy, there are no shortcuts. Soft-skills are a dime a dozen. I don't know if this is an America thing where everyone thinks you can just schmooze your way around and be employable, or if it's just universal laziness, but use your brain and ignore obvious lies. Put in the heavy effort to learn your livelihood or you will absolutely lose it.

 

What else is old

[enjar]

Back in the 90's when I was getting my engineering degree, people were whimpering about.

1. Having to write out lab reports
2. The indignity and waste of time that the non-engineering required classes were
3. Getting points taken away on lab reports for grammar, spelling mistakes, and punctuation
4. Having to make presentations to the class, explain data and give demonstrations on engineering subjects.

The professor wouldn't budge. He made it abundantly clear that you could have flawless lab technique, perfect calculations, the best design or the most innovative idea ever and it would never go anywhere unless you could adequately communicate with your peers, managers, investors, a review board, a corporate board, sales personnel, customers, and pretty much anyone else an engineer might need to communicate with.

Fast forward to where I am now and it couldn't be more true. For instance, I'm asked to contribute to capital planning for the next year. This requires me to engage the technical requirements of the teams I work with and then translate that into some amount of money that gets put in the budget. Naturally, when you request a large amount of money, people ask questions back. I have to be able to answer them coming from a manager as well as a technical expert. I get occasionally asked to sit in on a conference call with a big customer as a technical expert to back up our consultants or applications engineers. I need to know how to present myself there and not make a fool of myself or my colleagues. Customers can come in the "high level manager" variety , "person whose technical expertise is similar to mine", or "how did this person get hired and on this project" variety.

So, to sum up: yes, technical skill is important. You need that in a technical role. No question about it. At some point, though, technical skills aren't enough, the soft skills need also be present as your technical acumen and renown grow in your organization. There is absolutely nothing new to this, at all.

Re:Should do the trick, based on my experience

[crgrace]

I know it's frustrating to be the strongest technically and not get promoted, but the strongest technical contributor isn't necessarily the best manager.

I lead a hardware development group and I don't do that much development myself anymore these days. What I spend my time on is:

1. Setting development priorities (we don't have enough resources, so I need to find the least-bad solution)

2. Hand-holding engineers having interpersonal problems

3. Shielding my team from organizational politics

4. Fighting my peer managers to get development resources for my team's projects

5. Promoting our group and our development ideas to upper management

6. Evaluating the contributions of the various technical folks on my team and trying to fairly distribute my (very) limited raise pool.

7. Doing hands-on hardware development.

As you can see, this isn't necessarily a good for the best technical engineer. Soft skills go a long, long way.

Re:No shit Sherlock

[sfcat]

The Divas are not team players either and if they won't follow the direction SET by the manager, then they are definitely not worth the trouble that they create.

Its likely that you are the real problem. If the divas are the top devs (and likely they are, otherwise they wouldn't be divas) then they likely should be the ones setting the technical direction of the project and not you. You are likely setting a bad course and won't take a hint when they tell you so. So instead of saying, "maybe I'm in the wrong here", you label them "assholes". Perhaps you are the real problem and not the divas. Perhaps they are only divas when a manager without their technical skills tries to "set the direction" in the wrong way. Just a thought...