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To be honest, I don't really think it's actually that deep. Usually, the purpose of the distinction in this context is just useful to convey if someone is skill
by jchw 2y ago
To be honest, I don't really think it's actually that deep. Usually, the purpose of the distinction in this context is just useful to convey if someone is skilled in software engineering specifically. For example, when I hear "technical manager" in the context of programming, I think of "the type of manager that weighs in and leads 'technical' decisions directly".
This distinction is pretty important for the expectations to be set right, so throwing ourselves into another euphemism treadmill feels like a bad idea, this always leads to a lot of confusion for questionable gain. I'd rather we just tried to make people value "soft skills" more if the problem is that people do not.
- Terr_ 2y agoYeah, it's not that I don't believe the hidden fractal nature of human knowledge where all modern problems are deeper than they first appear--It just happens to be the established jargon among software companies for software stuff.
- qsort 2y ago> we just tried to make people value "soft skills" more if the problem is that people do not. If
- xnickb 2y agoIf this is meant sarcastically, I'm happy to report that most places I worked at valued "soft skills" much more than "hard skills" during hiring. The rationale was: there is no use in your hard skills in our environment if you can't communicate and collaborate.
- qsort 2y agoI meant it semi-sarcastically but you don't seem to disagree? It doesn't seem to me like "soft skills" are particularly in need to be valued more than they currently are. I would argue that the opposite is often true -- perfectly good developers being undervalued because they aren't assertive enough to "sell themselves".
- johnnyanmac 2y ago>I'm happy to report that most places I worked at valued "soft skills" much more than "hard skills" during hiring. varies a lot per company. But places lately have definitely skewed towards "hard skills". Training in my industry was always a joke, but they basically want 5YOE out of college these days. IDK if I would have gotten hired at any of my previous roles if this mentality was present 8 years ago.
- Jensson 2y agoThat is because the people with soft skills that are paid well need people to get things done, so they go and hire cheap people with hard skills. That is how it works at every single company, the people with soft skills are paid the best and rule over those with hard skills.
- danaris 2y agoThe problem is, so many "soft skills" are things you can claim to have—and maybe even think you have—but can't actually be meaningfully tested in an interview setting. Things like leadership, creativity, collaboration, ability (and drive) to learn new things quickly. Basically the only ones you have a chance at demonstrating in an interview are communication (within limited parameters) and problem-solving (assuming the hiring team knows how to put together a problem that's well-calibrated for the type of candidate they actually want). And even those can easily be thrown off by the extremely high pressure of an interview.
- lucianbr 2y agoSeems like the author just doesn't understand what people mean when they talk about a manager being technical or not. I don't think anyone means "this person has no depth of knowledge about anything". We just mean "they don't know programming", more or less. Lots of words making a point nobody contested.