4 ms·

I am, charitably, a pretty decent developer. I also have what I think most would agree is a pretty successful career. My career is not built on programming. Ra

I am, charitably, a pretty decent developer. I also have what I think most would agree is a pretty successful career. My career is not built on programming. Rather, it's built on my ability to communicate effectively in writing and in spontaneous speech, and to serve as a translation layer between various parts of an organization. Your frustration is my opportunity. In my experience, few people without the training or education will be effective communicators. What's my training? A philosophy degree. Theater. An interest in psychology and psychotherapy. Extensive reading. All sorts of management duties within my family, who are of a different culture and class than myself. Tech is full of young people with CS and business degrees, lots of money, in a homogenous social context, without their own family. So they haven't been educated to express deeply abstract concepts effectively, and lack the experience of getting a large diverse group working effectively toward a shared goal.

aerostable_slug 4y ago
You took the words out of my mouth. People with accounting or business degrees who complained about having to take Greek Thought or whatever other minimal liberal arts courses often can't communicate their way out of a wet paper bag. It's not a question of intellect (though there are some with more innate aptitude than others), it's a question of training.
- conductr 4y ago
  I work with accountants and have been successful at effectively being their voice to other people. I'd argue they are aware of their deficiencies and have chosen a profession accordingly. They largely have no interest in the training. Or, perhaps they just have no interest in implementing the lessons the training provides. Same results either way, they are poor communicators.
hrgiger 4y ago
so you are project manager?
hellfish 4y ago
rantee 4y ago
As someone with a liberal arts degree who also, charitably, is a pretty decent developer, this is spot on. (No disrespect to those educated in different contexts, or those who have difficulty for other neurodiverse, cultural or ESL, or other reasons who excel in other areas.) After years on non-technical or customer-facing teams, followed by a dozen years in technical roles, I've noticed that my ability to effectively communicate abstract concepts has greatly diminished. This has held even for things I deeply understand at both a micro (the technical details and dependencies) and macro (the business context) level. Unedited, this comment full of parenthetical statements and loaded with commas, is a prime example of what's happened. Is it due to over-training one's brain to account for all the little details? Anxiety about all that could go wrong? Over-excitement about being on the precipice of nailing something? Or more general cultural trends in the way we process information? Time will tell, unless the Singularity catches up first.
- ilaksh 4y ago
  Are you sure it's unclear to use commas and parentheses? Is being frowned upon by English professors really the same as being unclear? Language means compressing and serializing information. Commas and parentheticals are a more efficient way to leave the information in a slightly more compressed state. Generally we are describing a graph serially, and adding the details as we go rather than coming back one by one and zooming in is just more efficient. Also, I honestly suspect that often people just don't have the detailed level of understanding to be able to add it on the first level. And those details can be quite critical. I mean, also the actual amount of things that are relevant that they have to say may make their communication seem cluttered compared to someone with a more simplistic knowledge base and thought process.
bacon_waffle 4y ago
How do you suggest others find people like you to work with?
- m_fayer 4y ago
  Find companies with socially relevant and/or idiosyncratic missions. Look for teams that tilt older. Stay away from sv hype and nonsense.

aerostable_slug 4y ago

You took the words out of my mouth. People with accounting or business degrees who complained about having to take Greek Thought or whatever other minimal liberal arts courses often can't communicate their way out of a wet paper bag. It's not a question of intellect (though there are some with more innate aptitude than others), it's a question of training.

conductr 4y ago
I work with accountants and have been successful at effectively being their voice to other people. I'd argue they are aware of their deficiencies and have chosen a profession accordingly. They largely have no interest in the training. Or, perhaps they just have no interest in implementing the lessons the training provides. Same results either way, they are poor communicators.

hrgiger 4y ago

so you are project manager?

hellfish 4y ago

rantee 4y ago

As someone with a liberal arts degree who also, charitably, is a pretty decent developer, this is spot on. (No disrespect to those educated in different contexts, or those who have difficulty for other neurodiverse, cultural or ESL, or other reasons who excel in other areas.) After years on non-technical or customer-facing teams, followed by a dozen years in technical roles, I've noticed that my ability to effectively communicate abstract concepts has greatly diminished. This has held even for things I deeply understand at both a micro (the technical details and dependencies) and macro (the business context) level. Unedited, this comment full of parenthetical statements and loaded with commas, is a prime example of what's happened. Is it due to over-training one's brain to account for all the little details? Anxiety about all that could go wrong? Over-excitement about being on the precipice of nailing something? Or more general cultural trends in the way we process information? Time will tell, unless the Singularity catches up first.

ilaksh 4y ago
Are you sure it's unclear to use commas and parentheses? Is being frowned upon by English professors really the same as being unclear? Language means compressing and serializing information. Commas and parentheticals are a more efficient way to leave the information in a slightly more compressed state. Generally we are describing a graph serially, and adding the details as we go rather than coming back one by one and zooming in is just more efficient. Also, I honestly suspect that often people just don't have the detailed level of understanding to be able to add it on the first level. And those details can be quite critical. I mean, also the actual amount of things that are relevant that they have to say may make their communication seem cluttered compared to someone with a more simplistic knowledge base and thought process.

bacon_waffle 4y ago

How do you suggest others find people like you to work with?

m_fayer 4y ago
Find companies with socially relevant and/or idiosyncratic missions. Look for teams that tilt older. Stay away from sv hype and nonsense.