"I became an engineer so I could avoid words." — Some engineer I overheard
This is just wrong. The strongest engineers write things down publicly because software engineering is a team sport.
Writing isn't just for you—it's for others. When people need to talk to you instead of reading what you wrote, they're queueing for your attention. 1/3
Public writing has superpowers:
• Scales: Unblocks people without repetitive conversations
• Extends: Others can reference, cite, expand on your work
• Async-friendly: Helps remote teams, people on leave, vacations
Information trapped in private messages/emails creates silos. Public writing breaks them down. 2/3
As you advance, you spend less time coding, more time writing: code reviews, tickets, architecture docs.
Senior+ roles are writing roles. You express complex technical ideas in human language—the language with highest degree of freedom.
Your technical skills are your floor. Your writing ability is your ceiling. 3/3
@raiderrobert in school, some people in German class (our native language) were like "I don't need this, it's not like I will do something with language later."
Let's just say, this mentality shows, when you have to rewrite the documentation in group projects, because some engineers apparently can't write cohesive sentences let alone whole paragraphs in their native language.
betzerra
Robert Roskam
Dave Wise
Ju