Having a hard time with communication as a software engineer – would love some advice
Posted by curiousguy_08@reddit | ExperiencedDevs | View on Reddit | 36 comments
I'm trying to see how i can improve my communication and storytelling as engineer at my job; i think i have a decent tech. knowledge but per feedback from my managers and one very senior software architect, i need to improve my communication skills as sometimes people have hard time understanding what i say. English isn't my first language btw, and even though i understand well and can have a fluent conversation, there might be times where i struggle to explain my thoughts clearly (especially during presentations or meetings). My last presentation via Teams didn't go quite as I expected. I knew the content, but I couldn't get my points across the way I wanted to. It's kind of frustrating, and I def. want to get better at this.
Questions that I might ask to you:
- how did you improve your communication skills?
- any courses, books or tips that helped?
Lowkey I've been planning to take English as a second language in school to see if i can improve my grammar, writing and other things; but want to see what other people might have done that helped them first.
thanks!
sarakg@reddit
My biggest tip is to consider your audience - really ask yourself what they’re wanting to get out of this presentation. Not what you want them to get out of it, but what are they needing to take away from the information. This information should be easy for them to pluck out, and then you can back it up with more details as you go. But make it easy for them to find the information they’ll need.
dannysauer@reddit
This has been missing from several of the comments. People say "managers want", etc. But it's important to know what each specific audience wants. Does everyone care about technical details? Probably not. If you're in a situation where the discussion is interactive, start low detail and then add information (including asking "is that clear, or would you like to know more about X" if questions don't come).
Think of it kinda like commenting code. Upper management probably just wants the description on the box. Other teams and your management want the user guide. Peer engineers want the function comments that explain non-obvious choices.
PressureAppropriate@reddit
English is a second language for many people (me included). It shouldn't be a barrier for clear communication.
From what I have observed, clear communication starts with clear thoughts. I've seen many engineers unable to make a point because they feel like they have to give 15 minutes of background before getting to it... Figure out a way to set the scene in a sentence or two or you'll lose your audience and just annoy everyone on the call!
vegan_antitheist@reddit
A lot of people just want you to listen and ask questions.
spitfiredd@reddit
Just frame it that your target audience is a small child with a short attention span.
chaoism@reddit
I had the same problem. At the time, my senior told me to just get to the point. Whatever you want to make across, say it in the first 30 seconds.
Make your sentences really concise. Don't try to warrant every single statement you say with a back story
The fewer words you say with plain language, the easier people can understand
Hope this helps
kobumaister@reddit
My problem is that I go too fast to the point expecting others to have my knowledge.
canihaveanapplepie@reddit
First stage make your point so that other people who have the context can participate. Then give the entire group the context needed( giving them permission to interrupt you here). Then restarted your point and ask for questions
jisuskraist@reddit
Maybe others have your knowledge? I had the same patronizing thought in the past, like I had to explain very clearly because people don't know what I'm talking about.
With time I understood that most people know even more than me haha.
I just get to the point and let people ask questions.
SpiderHack@reddit
Think of your sentences like executive summaries for reports. Most c suite people want the actual numbers to be there, but instead want handed the summary first and then will go into details later.
Most people want the same in conversation.
I've actually had to tell my mom " please stop for a minute. I want to listen and pay attention to you. But you're telling me a long story without me knowing the point of the story. So I actually get lost in the details and it makes it hard for me to pay attention. If you can tell me the ending of the story first in 2 sentences, then I'll know what to pay attention to, and will be able to actually listen better." - no one in her life had ever told her this, so she hadn't considered it. I think you're likely doing the dev equivalent.
engineered_academic@reddit
On the advice of someone I really respect, I joined a really good Toastmasters group and my presentation skills took off. You need to find the right one for you. Most of my meetings are done on zoom but sometimes I need to present in person, so a hybrid group is really good.
justUseAnSvm@reddit
I wouldn't consider myself an excellent communicator, but there's a few things I've done that that help me be effective.
Finally, spend the time on analyzing other people's communication, what they did well, and what you think could be improved. These skills take a long time to develop, and the more deliberate practice you have, the better you'll become.
razzmatazz_123@reddit
> a lot of engineers talk about basically nothing
1000x this. There's this one person at my work that just speaks business speak really well, but doesn't really say that much in terms of content and the boss just eats it up.
justUseAnSvm@reddit
Haha. There's two ways to measure "goodness" in engineering: if the project is good and does the thing, and then how happy that makes your manager. As I've gotten further in my career, I've realized the later is much, much more important for me to get ahead.
So, if you're explaining something to a manager, I'm inclined to just believe that's a decent use of time. What drives me crazy is when we're having a conversation about something, and someone starts talking about something else, like some hypothetical direction we could take the project in, only after we solve all the problems we have today, tomorrow, and several months from now!
hubert_farnsworrth@reddit
A lot of good advice on this thread. What I personally like to do is a question answer format or start broad and outline the problem first.
Lay down the problem first instead of jumping to a solution from a Birds Eye view. Eg. Application A can’t connect to application B instead saying of I see issues with network sockets etc, and then go deeper and look how solutions. At that point your audience probably start to have ideas of their own.
If you are presenting make it a question answer format. You can speak questions loudly or just write down the question and answer them. E.g
Q. What is the problem we are trying to solve? Answer to audience
Q. How would application a connect to application B? Answer
Q. How many threads should the app use? Answer
And so on.
Hope this helps.
papa-hare@reddit
When I was in grad school there was another person there who was pretty smart and got their paper accepted at a conference. So they made a presentation and presented it to a group, and it was disastrous. The student wasn't a native English speaker (neither am I), but their advisor was from the same country, so he made sure they PRACTICED until they were perfect. The second presentation went on without a hitch.
So, I guess, practice.
randomInterest92@reddit
Easy thing to do to improve your communication: whenever you do anything comment on it like you're a teacher explaining it to someone who is trying to learn from you. Just do it all the time and you'll Almost immediately become a great explainer. This also has a great side effect of putting you really fast into the flow state and it also forces you to really understand what you do on a deep level, otherwise you'd not be able to explain it
DeterminedQuokka@reddit
When I had this problem my friend suggested I learn about technical writing. That was super helpful.
I also got this amazing feedback from a manager that I was consistently either speaking like someone had the same knowledge as me or that they were stupid and I had to explain everything. The right level is usually in the middle.
When I present I focus really hard on what the other person actually needs to know. I’ve been doing a lot of ai trainings at my job and the broad ones I don’t go into depth about how to use PyTorch or how the technical math works. I show examples and say “this is the problem, this is why the problem matters for you specifically”. And I tailor. Those presentations I gave to both product and engineering and the why was different depending on who I was talking to. I also told people how to get the stuff I wasn’t going to explain. If they want to know how Monte Carlo works talk to the head of analytics.
Last structure. You need to convince someone to listen immediately. First sentence/slide is a tldr of why this matters. People are stressed and overwhelmed and they need something quick. Do not make the stuff crazy long. I limit an RFC to 3 pages then I link out to deep dives on issues. The shorter it is the more likely people see all of it. You need to prioritize on the assumption people don’t have time. When I get sent a 40 page doc I’m more angry than helpful.
thewritingwallah@reddit
I got similar feedback a few years back too. It’s a reflection that your input is valued and they want to hear more of it. For me, it was a confidence thing. Start speaking up on topics you’re very knowledgeable on and build it up from there.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say “don’t give a shit about what people say”. I think taking people’s feedback on your inputs is down to your work environment and the source of the feedback. I’d always treat people with respect regardless.
I’ve found that once you improve this skill, it opens a lot more doors for you in terms of career progression.
arihoenig@reddit
I am a monolingual native English speaker, I can't even imagine learning another language well enough to explain conceptually complex subjects in that language.
I wouldn't beat up on yourself too much because what you're doing is really hard.
Perhaps you can use an LLM to help? Free in your text in English and ask it to help improve the clarity and observe how it changes it.
Decent_Perception676@reddit
Was going to suggest this, but also add that you should tell the LLM who your audience will be. “I’m going to dump my thoughts on topic x in this chat, can you help me organize it so the ideas communicate clearly, my audience is xyz”.
You should also ask your manager/architect how you can improve. There is a lot of different ways that people fail to communicate. Are your arguments unclear, are your technical explanations loosing people, do you not know how to make persuasive point, wrong content for the audience…
arihoenig@reddit
Yes, it could be organizational, not linguistic, but either way the LLM might be able to help.
Wide-Pop6050@reddit
Even with presentations I think of each slide as a paragraph. The first five sentence paragraph you're taught. What is the thesis statement of the slide?
Say what you mean, explain it a little bit, and then repeat the point (not word for word). You don't have to go into crazy detail - let people ask follow ups. They will need a few seconds to absorb and respond - expect that.
Also as someone else said, keep it short and to the point.
newprint@reddit
The best communicators in my experience are US Army personnel, especially higher ranking officers. They have a course on Effective Writing: https://rdl.train.army.mil/catalog-ws/view/100.ATSC/5D2BDA88-E8E5-4119-89D1-3FC243778F94-1308929329079/is1460/toc.htm
There also plenty of YouTube videos and other materials online.
itsmaibirfday@reddit
Look up Vinh Giang on YouTube. He has good tips about articulation for English as a second language speakers.
And then other tips about how to practice. There’s one exercise where you record yourself and play it back 3 times.
For each of the playbacks you will want to take notes on how you come across and how you can improve it. I think you can go through this set of exercises several times until you are happy with the results. He explains it a lot better but this is the gist of it.
Impossible_Way7017@reddit
I use the abbreviation, SCRI proposed by Barbara Minto, and try to follow this when either speaking or writing out an update
S: Situation (like an intro) C: Challenge / Complication (the why) R: Resolutions / Recommendations (if it’s an update then talk about a resolution, if you need help making a decision give a couple recommendations to mull over) I: Implication (any side effects to consider)
Significant_Mouse_25@reddit
A compliment I’ve gotten from people including several bosses is that I don’t jump right to speaking. I actively and obviously take a minute to consider my words.
People don’t remember if you’re right or wrong they remember how you make them feel. How you say things is at least as important as what you’re saying.
Try to be both precise and concise.
In written communication use more lists and fewer paragraphs.
During presentations and the like try to think of it as a story you’re telling. Where you were where you are and how you got there. Future tense if trying to sell someone on something.
Presentation should be more images and charts and fewer words in general.
Advanced presentation skills include seeding questions. Make a statement that has an obvious question. Praise the asker for asking it. Be well prepared for answering it. Most people are bad at asking questions. Sending questions is a nice psychological trick to get them to feel better about themselves with you transfer into liking you.
Be kind. Not just polite. Praise people.
There’s always a nice way to tell the truth too.
Find someone who communicates well and model your own communication pattern on that.
Massless@reddit
Are you familiar with high vs. low context communication? It has to do with how much you expect your audience to know implicitly and it’s cultural. Even if you speak the language fluently, the relative expectations around context between people from different cultures causes miscommunication all the time .
Americans are the lowest-context communicators in the world so you’re probably from a relatively high-context communication culture.
So what’s that mean practically? To get your point across to an American audience, you need to lay out your thoughts succinctly and without much subtlety. You’re even seeing it in these comments: “just get to the point.”
A common formula is “This is what I’m going to talk about.. This is what I just said.” It can feel trite, but it gets the job done. Another popular strategy is bluf: bottom line up front. Say why your idea is importance first and then backfill detail.
blissone@reddit
Did you rehearse it? Always always go through it a few times, never wing it.
Anyways use simple language, slow down, if you dont find the words take a pause, its better to be understood than fake fluency. In general slow is good. Tbh as a non native speaker there is no quick fix, just keep at it. Usually you can avoid words that are sifficult to pronounce and replace with something not so eloquent but easy to pronounce. Anyhow in general think in advance what you want to say.
Mr-Canadian-Man@reddit
Would you pay for one on one coaching ?
DoubleAway6573@reddit
I'm trying to to put myself in the boots of my listener. Sometimes is easier, others, like talking with people with minimal tech education or not technical C-tier its too difficult for me. I'm learning to frame things in other ways, like "this will reduce X or produce Y return". Also, I'm interacting with a designer ascended to product discovery and now she don't want any "answer" because is in the discovery phase.... and I have to give proposals in a vague way, even when I have an implementation idea and some estimation of development time I just can say something like "hey, they didn't say this explicitly, but these little things that are bothering them and are not the biggest pain point they express, actually are part of the same problem, and if we could give a solution to that, then we will reduce their problems more than any other of the big pain points".
Imagine any conversation as a presentation. Just prepare beforehand, trying to understand the interests and motivations of you audience. Catalog people from interest (personal interest, these can be good hooks if not abused), background and role. Be prepared to don't be able to direct the conversation, think on responses to alternative questions. Be prepared for a push-back. Don't get too much on your head. Your task at that moment is communication, not working on the problem (I fail too much on this). After every meeting, spent 5 min reflecting on the outcome and when things got stray. Also, in big meetings, look how others interact. Try to read transcriptions of meetings and see what do the people that carry the conversation.
tangertale@reddit
Practice before presenting. English is my second language too, though I usually get compliments on my communication style & presentations. Early on in my career I would perform practice runs of my presentations, record myself, and watch it again. I would also do practice runs with trusted mentors who would give me feedback, before presenting to a bigger group
LogicRaven_@reddit
Practice.
English classes could help both with the mastery of the language and with self confidence.
But if you are able to have a conversation in English already, then likely you can do a decent presentation with some practice of presentation skills.
You might want to practice how to present. Create the slides, then do the presentation for yourself with saying things loud a few times. Make a video recording of the presentation and consider if the message is getting through. Present to someone in a 1:1 setting and ask for feedback. Then go for the team presentation.
It might sound overkill at first, but with time you would need less and less preparation.
Seek chances to present, so you have multiple practice opportunities.
archialone@reddit
I usually start by discussing my ideas with coworkers. This helps me figure out what’s truly important in the message and what parts are just lengthy technical details that might cause managers to lose interest. After talking with a few colleagues, I’m able to shape a clearer version that highlights the main points.
By the time I present it to managers, I’ve already heard the common questions and cleared up potential confusion.
Also, as others have suggested, writing things down first makes it easier to refine the sentences and choose phrasing that resonates with the people you’re speaking to. Which makes it fit into 30s initial impression.
aviboy2006@reddit
HedgieHunterGME@reddit
Indian?