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Some of the worst and most ineffective coworkers I've ever worked with were intelligent, knowledgable, skilled, and severally lacking in the social skills depar

Some of the worst and most ineffective coworkers I've ever worked with were intelligent, knowledgable, skilled, and severally lacking in the social skills department. In some cases I've seen the more abrasive and toxic variants of these people completely crush morale for the rest of the team or company, and destroy any success. They were a net loss to the company. Yeah, social skills matter. A lot. It's not about having a girlfriend, it's about effective communication with the people you work with.

collyw 7y ago
I am coming to the conclusion that social skills are probably more valuable than coding skills. I don't think I am especially productive in my current job due to a lot of context switching, but I think they like me for my attitude.
- ShteiLoups 7y ago
  "Engineering is a team sport" - me You need to be able to work with others to produce things, unless you always work alone. Social skills are a very important part of that.
  - username90 7y ago
    The ability to partition work into independent chunks is way more important than social skills when you work as a software engineer with other software engineers. Then they can work on their things and you can work on yours with little need for further communication. And don't come saying that divvying up technical tasks is a social skill, it really isn't.
    - saagarjha 7y ago
      At some point your work needs to interact with other people's.
      - username90 7y ago
        If you don't understand what technical information they need to do their job then you lack technical skills. If you don't understand what technical information you need to request from others then you lack technical skills. If you can't write them down or express them in words you lack technical skills. If you can do those things then you can work with others and be productive. You might not be fit for a career in sales but that is not what we are discussing. The only major "social skill" you need is the ability to not offend or inconvenience others. This part is not very hard and doesn't need repeating as much as people do it.
- Carpetsmoker 7y ago
  Clearly you need both; I've also worked with really sociable and nice people who were a great laugh but couldn't program their way out of a paper bag if the survival of the human species depended on it.
- tekkk 7y ago
  If by valuable you mean they keep you employed despite not doing anything, sure. They are valuable for career progress and such, but when faced with real technical difficulties, you are not going to talk yourself out of it. Or maybe you can, delegate them to some poor bastard. What a wonderful world we are living in.
  - collyw 7y ago
    I didn't say that I did nothing, I just know that I have been more productive in previous jobs due to a number of factors. But hey perhaps you lack some social skills jumping to conclusions like that.
- DylanDmitri 7y ago
  Social/engineering skill are two sides of a rectangle, and the area is what matters.
christiansakai 7y ago
On the other hand, my colleagues talk a lot. Like, almost half of their day (i.e, 4 hours) is spend talking about random topics like weather, food, gossipping etc and nothing job related. They aren't that skillful coding wise. But I wonder, is this more acceptable than having hard coding skills? Serious question.
- ravenstine 7y ago
  In my experience, people are more interested in being around cool people than competence. (I'm not making a value judgment here)
etagobla 7y ago
I agree, but there's a certain line that a good software engineer should not cross and that's where their improved social skills make local gf attainment feasible, because then they'll start devoting their time to other things. In my case I can already see my increased HN karma pulling me away from our tablegen spec. With a gf I'd be useless.
- taylorlapeyre 7y ago
  Are you implying that being able to have an intimate relationship with another human being disqualifies someone from being a "good software engineer"?
  - etagobla 7y ago
    It's not an absolute one to one relationship. I'm talking about general trends.
- rafa1981 7y ago
  Some people downvoting you may be lacking skills to detect that this, even if partly true, is a joke. For me it was good.
  - etagobla 7y ago
    haha they don't like me today

collyw 7y ago

I am coming to the conclusion that social skills are probably more valuable than coding skills. I don't think I am especially productive in my current job due to a lot of context switching, but I think they like me for my attitude.

ShteiLoups 7y ago
"Engineering is a team sport" - me You need to be able to work with others to produce things, unless you always work alone. Social skills are a very important part of that.
- username90 7y ago
  The ability to partition work into independent chunks is way more important than social skills when you work as a software engineer with other software engineers. Then they can work on their things and you can work on yours with little need for further communication. And don't come saying that divvying up technical tasks is a social skill, it really isn't.
  - saagarjha 7y ago
    At some point your work needs to interact with other people's.
    - username90 7y ago
      If you don't understand what technical information they need to do their job then you lack technical skills. If you don't understand what technical information you need to request from others then you lack technical skills. If you can't write them down or express them in words you lack technical skills. If you can do those things then you can work with others and be productive. You might not be fit for a career in sales but that is not what we are discussing. The only major "social skill" you need is the ability to not offend or inconvenience others. This part is not very hard and doesn't need repeating as much as people do it.
Carpetsmoker 7y ago
Clearly you need both; I've also worked with really sociable and nice people who were a great laugh but couldn't program their way out of a paper bag if the survival of the human species depended on it.
tekkk 7y ago
If by valuable you mean they keep you employed despite not doing anything, sure. They are valuable for career progress and such, but when faced with real technical difficulties, you are not going to talk yourself out of it. Or maybe you can, delegate them to some poor bastard. What a wonderful world we are living in.
- collyw 7y ago
  I didn't say that I did nothing, I just know that I have been more productive in previous jobs due to a number of factors. But hey perhaps you lack some social skills jumping to conclusions like that.
DylanDmitri 7y ago
Social/engineering skill are two sides of a rectangle, and the area is what matters.

christiansakai 7y ago

On the other hand, my colleagues talk a lot. Like, almost half of their day (i.e, 4 hours) is spend talking about random topics like weather, food, gossipping etc and nothing job related. They aren't that skillful coding wise. But I wonder, is this more acceptable than having hard coding skills? Serious question.

ravenstine 7y ago
In my experience, people are more interested in being around cool people than competence. (I'm not making a value judgment here)

etagobla 7y ago

I agree, but there's a certain line that a good software engineer should not cross and that's where their improved social skills make local gf attainment feasible, because then they'll start devoting their time to other things. In my case I can already see my increased HN karma pulling me away from our tablegen spec. With a gf I'd be useless.

taylorlapeyre 7y ago
Are you implying that being able to have an intimate relationship with another human being disqualifies someone from being a "good software engineer"?
- etagobla 7y ago
  It's not an absolute one to one relationship. I'm talking about general trends.
rafa1981 7y ago
Some people downvoting you may be lacking skills to detect that this, even if partly true, is a joke. For me it was good.
- etagobla 7y ago
  haha they don't like me today