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I have to agree with tile and the OP. Even if you have a dedicated formal writer for writing formal documents like briefs or proposals, every engineer should be

I have to agree with tile and the OP. Even if you have a dedicated formal writer for writing formal documents like briefs or proposals, every engineer should be decent at writing. Especially now that more and more communication is asynchronous. I've worked with many engineers who couldn't write, and it always came across in the aspects of the work mentioned in the thread — less ability to parse error messages, to describe things to others over email/Slack/comments, and most critically, to understand things that others wrote. Fundamentally, a huge amount of engineering is reading and writing. And I find those skills are very often linked.

fnordpiglet 4y ago
Sorry I think I wasn’t clear. I didn’t mean there was a dedicated writer any more than there’s a dedicated speaker or dedicated coder. The conversation is about the mode by which people gain their clarity. A person who gains clarity by writing will naturally gravitate to doing that and will be the dominant writer in the team. But that doesn’t obviate anyone from writing. There are people that gravitate to drawing things out to think things through. That’s where the gravitate, and they’ll likely end up doing a lot of the diagramming. Etc. But everyone participates in every aspect to their ability. The key is recognizing everyone isn’t the same, and that’s not a flaw but a feature. Many managers have a prescriptive view of an engineer and evaluate them like quality control in a widget factory. An excellent manager evaluates the people for their strengths and aligns their work to those strengths. In the foot ball analogy the core skill is running. Everyone runs. But some are really really fast runners. So you have them run really really fast. You let the person who’s really good at throwing be the quarter back. They still run, but it’s not expected they run as well as the fastest runners nor is it a problem. Because the fastest runners are the catchers. If you think engineers don’t come in the variety and shapes and skills as a football team, I don’t think you really understand how teams or humans or engineers work yet and I hope you consider looking at them as individuals and not a prescriptive skill set.
- orange8 4y ago
  I feel you are putting yourself, and others in a box. We all can gain more clarity from an idea by talking, writing or drawing about it. You don't have to be good at it, it will still improve your grasp of the problem. Of the three, writing is the slowest, meaning your mind takes more time and effort. And the time spent on something has a direct relation to its quality. Long story short, you will become an even greater engineer by drawing and writing out your ideas.
- marcellus23 4y ago
  Sure, of course everyone has different strengths. That might apply to things like one's ability to work with other teams, or being detail-oriented versus being able to see the big picture. I don't think that applies here. Writing and reading are very basic skills that will help you in all aspects of your job as an engineer, and everyone should be as good as they can be at them.

fnordpiglet 4y ago

Sorry I think I wasn’t clear. I didn’t mean there was a dedicated writer any more than there’s a dedicated speaker or dedicated coder. The conversation is about the mode by which people gain their clarity. A person who gains clarity by writing will naturally gravitate to doing that and will be the dominant writer in the team. But that doesn’t obviate anyone from writing. There are people that gravitate to drawing things out to think things through. That’s where the gravitate, and they’ll likely end up doing a lot of the diagramming. Etc. But everyone participates in every aspect to their ability. The key is recognizing everyone isn’t the same, and that’s not a flaw but a feature. Many managers have a prescriptive view of an engineer and evaluate them like quality control in a widget factory. An excellent manager evaluates the people for their strengths and aligns their work to those strengths. In the foot ball analogy the core skill is running. Everyone runs. But some are really really fast runners. So you have them run really really fast. You let the person who’s really good at throwing be the quarter back. They still run, but it’s not expected they run as well as the fastest runners nor is it a problem. Because the fastest runners are the catchers. If you think engineers don’t come in the variety and shapes and skills as a football team, I don’t think you really understand how teams or humans or engineers work yet and I hope you consider looking at them as individuals and not a prescriptive skill set.

orange8 4y ago
I feel you are putting yourself, and others in a box. We all can gain more clarity from an idea by talking, writing or drawing about it. You don't have to be good at it, it will still improve your grasp of the problem. Of the three, writing is the slowest, meaning your mind takes more time and effort. And the time spent on something has a direct relation to its quality. Long story short, you will become an even greater engineer by drawing and writing out your ideas.
marcellus23 4y ago
Sure, of course everyone has different strengths. That might apply to things like one's ability to work with other teams, or being detail-oriented versus being able to see the big picture. I don't think that applies here. Writing and reading are very basic skills that will help you in all aspects of your job as an engineer, and everyone should be as good as they can be at them.