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> The charismatic guy who plays office politics and tries to make everybody their pal might score highly here, but the smart engineer who just sits down quietly
by mikrl 4y ago
> The charismatic guy who plays office politics and tries to make everybody their pal might score highly here, but the smart engineer who just sits down quietly and churns out good features might be forgotten.
Well it is a software engineering company/business is it not?
The socially connected engineer will know more people who can be leveraged to meet the goals of the organization, even if they themselves are not as capable in isolation.
If businesses were judged on metrics like “most autonomous engineers who can write perfect code” then the businessy types would be disadvantaged (and the company would fold)
- dopidopHN 4y agoYeah exactly. Having someone who know reliably who knows what and how to get that person time and attention is important. Specially in corporate settings where the gears need greasing. People are not gonna magically do the right things. They want context and understand why you are talking to them.
- mikrl 4y agoI constantly get told off by my boss for trying to be too clean and extensible at the expense of timely delivery (ie yesterday) but I am also the socially connected engineer who knows who’s good at what, and how to butter them up. In my mind I’m not getting paid to write nice code, I’m getting paid to help ensure the software side of things keeps expanding without breaking within constraints of time and money. I’m very happy when this involves writing code but I’m also happy if this involves brokering, nudging, reminding, motivating, flirting, cajoling or otherwise positively interacting with the highly talented people I work with. Social skills don’t come naturally to me, but the time investment spent figuring out the rules/heuristics has given me more bang-for-buck than any other lang.