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I can't disagree with the conclusion that coding skills are more predictive of interview success (although it surprises me), but I will say from my work experie

by rvense 4y ago

I can't disagree with the conclusion that coding skills are more predictive of interview success (although it surprises me), but I will say from my work experience that, after a certain point, I value communication skills much more than coding ability, and I would guess they are, in many places, more predictive of success on the job than raw technical ability.

zamfi 4y ago
Well, these results definitely validate that. Once you're topped out in coding ability, better communication only helps! Or were you saying that at some point you stopped caring about coding ability and valued strong communication even in the absence of the ability to problem solve and write code?
- rvense 4y ago
  I just mean that so long as someone's at a certain technical level, I'm more interested in their other skills, where communication would be one of the most important. For context, I'm in fairly mundane web app development, and technical issues (getting stuff to work at all, or perform well enough) have hardly ever been the main problem on my projects. The hardest part is almost always figuring out what to build.
- geoffjentry 4y ago
  > Well, these results definitely validate that. Once you're topped out in coding ability, better communication only helps! I think it's close to this, but not quite as it's a sliding scale and not a step function. From a business perspective, there tends to be diminishing returns as one's coding skills improve. And that's the point where returns on communication skills tends to become more important. So more often than not the higher the level the more important communication skills become over coding skills. This is not saying a high level engineer can be all talk and no ability, but rather a great communicator/good coder might become more valuable than a good communicator/great coder. Apologies for all the hedging in the above. I'm trying to take into account that there are always exceptions to the above. Some positions need that absolute wizard. It's the exception to the rule, but it exists.
  - zamfi 4y ago
    > This is not saying a high level engineer can be all talk and no ability, but rather a great communicator/good coder might become more valuable than a good communicator/great coder I was being a bit tongue-in-cheek there, but I will point out that folks who are good coders and great communicators often find roles that are more rewarding in every way outside the IC SWE universe, and so are probably poorly represented in this sample…

by rvense 4y ago

zamfi 4y ago

Well, these results definitely validate that. Once you're topped out in coding ability, better communication only helps! Or were you saying that at some point you stopped caring about coding ability and valued strong communication even in the absence of the ability to problem solve and write code?

rvense 4y ago
I just mean that so long as someone's at a certain technical level, I'm more interested in their other skills, where communication would be one of the most important. For context, I'm in fairly mundane web app development, and technical issues (getting stuff to work at all, or perform well enough) have hardly ever been the main problem on my projects. The hardest part is almost always figuring out what to build.
geoffjentry 4y ago
> Well, these results definitely validate that. Once you're topped out in coding ability, better communication only helps! I think it's close to this, but not quite as it's a sliding scale and not a step function. From a business perspective, there tends to be diminishing returns as one's coding skills improve. And that's the point where returns on communication skills tends to become more important. So more often than not the higher the level the more important communication skills become over coding skills. This is not saying a high level engineer can be all talk and no ability, but rather a great communicator/good coder might become more valuable than a good communicator/great coder. Apologies for all the hedging in the above. I'm trying to take into account that there are always exceptions to the above. Some positions need that absolute wizard. It's the exception to the rule, but it exists.
- zamfi 4y ago
  > This is not saying a high level engineer can be all talk and no ability, but rather a great communicator/good coder might become more valuable than a good communicator/great coder I was being a bit tongue-in-cheek there, but I will point out that folks who are good coders and great communicators often find roles that are more rewarding in every way outside the IC SWE universe, and so are probably poorly represented in this sample…