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I feel the writer is either being disingenuous or isn't a professional in the field. As a software engineer myself I do agree that collaboration is essential f
by lagadu 9y ago
I feel the writer is either being disingenuous or isn't a professional in the field.
As a software engineer myself I do agree that collaboration is essential for the product development cycle, specifically it's important for training hires and for project planning, including breaking down features into tasks. That said, once we make it into the task level, where coding gets done, the job is absolutely a solo task. That's what the whole process is designed to do; to break down any requirements into tasks that can be worked on solo by one team member, at that level collaboration or anything other than technical skills don't offer much.
- adrianratnapala 9y agoIt varies from day to day and person to person, but "the task level, where coding gets done" is not really where I spend much of my working time. Much more of my time is figuring out how things work and then getting agreement on changes. So that consideration elevates the value of social skills, but it's not obvious what that means in practice. Nerds with poor social skills can fail for all the usual reasons, #1 being big ego. But if we respect our colleagues' intelligence, then it can be helpful when we nerds are socially "naive" enough to take comments at face value without the usual human instinct of treating them as moves in a complex game. Another social skill is clear communication, and that is rare. But I've found it uncorrelated with nerdiness -- maths and engineering types are occasionally good at it, because they are good at pinning down concepts. But artsy types can also be good at it. I'd say lawyers are the best overall.
- skybrian 9y agoWell, except for pair programming, which is controversial can be a very good way to bring new team members up to speed. That's obviously social (a teaching task).