It takes more than great code to be a great engineer. Soft Skills Engineering is a weekly advice podcast for software developers about the non-technical stuff that goes into being a great software developer.
Similar Podcasts
The Infinite Monkey Cage
Brian Cox and Robin Ince host a witty, irreverent look at the world through scientists' eyes.
Ladybug Podcast
We're Emma Bostian, Sidney Buckner, Kelly Vaughn, and Ali Spittel - four seasoned software developers working in different sectors. Since there's a major lack of technical podcasts out there, we've decided to start one. Just kidding -- there's already a ton! But, we wanted to add our voices to the space and share our experiences and advice. We'll have great discussions around how to start coding, the hot technologies right now, how to get your first developer job, and more!
Check out our website!
Thinking Elixir Podcast
The Thinking Elixir podcast is a weekly show where we talk about the Elixir programming language and the community around it. We cover news and interview guests to learn more about projects and developments in the community.
Episode 93: Negotiating Annual Raises and Part-Time Work
This week Jamison and Dave answer these questions: My job doesn’t seem to leave room to negotiate salary or raises for our year-end review. Is this normal? How do I negotiate in this process? Can working part-time, when it’s possible to work full time, to invest in personal development look bad to a future employer? This tweet storm by Sarah Mei is good and relevant. This is the video about making your own font and anagraphs that Jamison mentioned at the end. It is SO GOOD. This is a funny and enlightening video that people of taste and culture will appreciate. This one is also good. Ok fine, they are all good.
Episode 92: Career Death by Friction and New Job Woes
This week Jamison and Dave answer these questions: A previous job involved a coworker who, over time, became very difficult to get along with. I did my best to talk it through with him, but he would only ever say I needed to “fix my attitude”. I tried to deflect and avoid conflict, but he’d continually impose himself on the situation. (Assign himself to review my code, come into my cube and demand my help, etc.) I had good relationships with the rest of the team, and they all agreed that he was out of line. Yet management viewed the situation as simply friction between two devs, with no clear instigator. Being a source of team friction is career death, and I’m personally embarrassed that anyone got that impression of me. How can I (or other listeners) handle this situation so that I don’t get painted as “part of the problem?” I’ve started a new job. I’m enjoying the work and the culture slightly less, and I discovered my salary could have been much higher had I negotiated harder. Is it too late to negotiate for a higher salary after I’ve already joined? Dave mentions this article on salary negotiation. It’s good!
Episode 91: Job Requirements and Teams of Misfits
This week Jamison and Dave answer these questions: How often do candidates get hired who don’t match the requirements listed in a job posting? Is it a waste for me to apply to all jobs I come across even though I only have about 1/3 of what they want? I’ve been moved to a newly formed team. I suspect the team consists of people nobody really wants to work with. What are my options in a situation like this?
Episode 90: Upper Management Dislikes Me and Undeserved Job Offers
This week Jamison and Dave answer these questions: Upper management has a negative impression of me because of an early manager. How do I manage and improve my reputation with mid and upper level management, who I interact with very rarely? I have a job offer I feel unqualified for. Should I decline this offer I honestly don’t deserve, or face a massive amount of impostor syndrome and risk not delivering?
Episode 89: Departed Engineers and Employment Contracts
This week Jamison and Dave answer these questions: How do I deal with co-workers who constantly cite the decisions of engineers who don’t work here anymore? My employment makes it sound like the company owns my past work and side-projects. Is this true? Is this normal?
Episode 88: How To Dress For Interviews and Learning To Interview
This week Jamison and Dave answer these questions: How do you dress for interviews? Full on informal beach bum? Smart casual? Formal suit tie? I’m a new developer and have been asked to interview incoming developers. How do I learn how to interview? This is the NoRedInk interview process. This is the blog post Jamison likes on getting data out of the technical portion of the interview. This is a slightly pessimistic look at pitfalls in the standard interview process. Google wrote a great article about structured interviewing that might also be helpful.
Episode 87: Pushover Coworkers and Productivity Metrics
This week Jamison and Dave answer these questions: My peers give up and say “have it your way” whenever we have technical discussions. How do I get them to be more vocal about their opinions? I like the idea of measuring things, but metrics seem easy to game. How do I effectively measure team and personal productivity? Jamison cites this tweet and this blog post about examining your own productivity.
Episode 86: Sharing Salaries and Offensive Words
This week Jamison and Dave answer these questions: Could you (Jamison and Dave) share some salary information publicly? It would help to know how much others make. My boss uses an offensive word in technical discussions. How do I ask him to stop?
Episode 85: Annoying Know-it-alls and Company Headshots
This week Jamison and Dave answer these questions: One of my co-workers is a know-it-all, which is pretty annoying. How do I work with them? A former employer still has my photo on their team website eight years after I left. How do I get them to take it down?
Episode 84: Shy Developers and Outsourced Architecture
This week Jamison and Dave answer these questions: I work with a very shy and anxious remote developer. How do I work effectively with them? Our manager is outsourcing the core architecture of our next products to an offshore team. How do I tell him I think this is a bad idea?
Episode 83: Gaps In The Resume and Moving To Business
This week Jamison and Dave answer these questions: I think I’ve saved enough money to get out of the rat race. If something goes wrong and I need to get a job again, how do I explain a long gap in my resume? I like writing code but I’m interested in moving to a more business-focused role. How can I test this without burning bridges? Do I need to take a pay cut?
Episode 82: Blow Ups and Job Security
This week Jamison and Dave answer these questions: How do I smooth things over after a blow-up between team members? A team mate admits he writes bad code on purpose for job security. What do I do?
Episode 81: Unwilling To Grow and Forced Out During Two Weeks Notice
This week Jamison and Dave answer these questions: A developer on a team I lead doesn’t seem interested in growing. How do I help them engage more? I gave two weeks notice, but was told part of the way through to not come in any more. I still had work left and this made me feel bad. Is this common? Did I do anything wrong? Jamison talks about the Khan Academy engineering culture. He kinda misquoted it though. They don’t explicitly say they lay people off who don’t progress.
Episode 80: New Team Leads and Constant Follow Up
This week Jamison and Dave answer these questions: How do I keep up with new tech as a team lead? I manage a team. A manager from a different team wants me to run everything I do in my team by him. What do I do? Jamison mentions this by Charity Majors on the pendulum between technical and people leadership. Jamison also mentions this HBR article on employee happiness.
Episode 79: Story Point Misses and Measuring Productivity
This week Jamison and Dave answer these questions: It seems like my teams always miss their story point commitments. Is this normal? How do you change it? How do you actually measure developer productivity? The article comparing research on productivity in static and dynamic type systems is here. It is a great read. Jamison also mentions Goodhart’s Law. Read more about it here.