Soft Skills Engineering
It takes more than great code to be a great engineer. Soft Skills Engineering is a weekly advice podcast for software developers about the non-technical stuff that goes into being a great software developer.
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Episode 532: My new company is an absolute mess and should I get an English-speaking job as a Japanese engineer?
<p>In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:</p> <p>Hi Dave and Jamison,</p> <p>I’ve been a Java backend dev for over 10 years. After getting laid off from a job I loved, I spent 3 tough months job hunting. I eventually landed a full-stack role at a non-tech company where I am the entire front-end department.</p> <p>The team is a mess:</p> A CTO who hasn’t coded in years and calls me directly to assign tasks, all labeled “highest priority.” When I asked the CTO and CEO if we had QA, they literally laughed...
Episode 531: Shallow feedback and my coworker is a huge sloperator
<p>In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:</p> <p>Listener Jame ain’t no dance asks,!</p> <p>Hey Space Therapists, I am a consultant that helps big companies to fix all kind of stuff. It’s ridiculous how many different hats I wear. One day I’m the interim PM, the other day I am telling SAP devs how to use a coding agent, next day I gather stakeholder requirements for a customer self service portal. I do all of these tasks on a fairly shallow level and all of that work is happening without much coordi...
Episode 530: Product engineering and why does my team never challenge my ideas?
<p>In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:</p> <p>Listener Myamax myamax says,</p> <p>I just listened to episode 527 and could really use some advice on being good at interviews.</p> <p>I was recently laid off with a decent severance package, so I have some breathing space. I’ve had several interviews, and I usually get past the initial screenings, but I don’t shine in technical rounds.</p> <p>I’m a career switcher, and most of my tech career has been in analytics at a big company. I’m good at distilling things, very goo...
Episode 529: Zoom calls on my open floor plan and laconic staff engineer
<p>In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:</p> <p>Hi Jamison and Dave, jesters of my daily commute. I’m a *mechanical* engineer at a megacorp, and since people are people, I find most of your advice transfers pretty well.</p> <p>I’m the tech lead within a small-ish org of about 25 people. We’re in-office, and split between two locations (in a similar time zone), and multiple different projects. This means that there are a lot of Zoom meetings between locations. Lately, I’ve been having an issue with engineers deciding to take these meetings from the...
Episode 528: Sleepy family software business and leaving after an acquisition
<p>In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:</p> <p>A listener named “Will angel answer my question?” asks,</p> <p>Hi, I recently joined a new company about 1.5 months ago. It is the technology arm of a family-owned business group that has existed for over 30 years, providing technology services to all the other companies in the group.</p> <p>After a one-week onboarding, I was assigned to a team. After 2–3 days, I still had no tasks, so I asked a coworker to pair program with me so I could learn more about the processes and continue learning. The ta...
Episode 527: I lost my job after 10 years and am I too old to switch to a security career?
<p>In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:</p> <p>Hello Dave and Jamison!</p> <p>I’m a longtime listener going back to the early days of the podcast, and I’ve listened to every episode since. When I started listening, I was beginning my career as a software engineer. Your advice has truly helped shape how I think about work, engineering, leadership, and all the weird human stuff that comes with building software.</p> <p>Now I’m more than 10 years into my career, and I’ve run into a problem that I suspect many experienced engineer...
Episode 526: Why can't I get promoted so quickly after my last promotion and I got hired as a software engineer but ended up doing ops
<p>In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:</p> <p>Hi Dave & Jamison! I’ve been listening for almost a year now and have worked through nearly your entire back catalog in reverse. The podcast has genuinely helped me become a better engineer, so thank you!</p> <p>I’m two years into my software engineer career at a large infrastructure company. I was promoted to SWE II last year, and this year my manager told me she felt my work was promotion-worthy, but because I’d just been promoted and she had others on the team to consid...
Episode 525: How do I save my company of 500 people and my new company is insane with AI
<p>In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:</p> <p>Hey Dave and Jamison, First, I love your show and it has now been part of my Monday evening routine for many years to listen to your podcast while cooking dinner.</p> <p>I recently joined a mid-sized software company (500 people) as a senior data engineer. The salary is a significant bump from my previous job and I really like the team on a personal level. Three months after I joined, the company laid off half its employees and announced a strategic pivot away from their previous core...
Episode 524: My CTO AI-codes big piles of slop and early mornings, late meetings
<p>In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:</p> <p>I work for a small software company on a team of about 7 or 8 engineers. I like working here. I like the people, the autonomy, the pay, my boss, and the stack among other things. I try to remind myself of this regularly so I don’t take it for granted. I’ve been here for about 2.5 years and would love to continue working here.</p> <p>Our CTO, like many, has become a big AI cowboy coder. Every few months, he vibe codes a new project and then deci...
Episode 523: (Rerun of 331) Prickly ticket and title downgrade
<p>This is a rerun of episode 331.</p> <p>In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:</p> <p>Listener ninjamonkey says,</p> <p>I am a new grad who is half a year into the role now at a very large company. Recently, a senior engineer on my team asked me to create a ticket for an infra team for a problem with a service. I provided logs and steps to reproduce the issue and did a health check before submitting.</p> <p>Right after, the manager of the team put me into a group chat with their...
