I originally posted this post on my blog a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.
Want to stand out as a coder? Learn to talk to non-technical people.
That's a crucial skill to master for every coder, even if you're not on the path to be a team leader.
Jargon won't make you look smarter
We often take pride in using technical jargon.
Jargon makes us feel smart. But true mastery is explaining things to people outside our fields.
At a previous team, we found a bug when syncing restaurant bills to room charges. It took us a long time to fix it. It was a serious issue.
The next day, we had "that" conversation in our daily meeting.
The team lead started to explain: "API, background processor, eventual consistency, optimistic concurrency..." He used every bit of jargon he knew to justify our 1- or 2-day delay.
To our PM and other non-tech people, it sounded like the alien language from The Arrival. You could tell by their confused and "what are you talking about" faces.
Speak their language, not yours
In that daily meeting, a simpler "somebody could walk away without paying their restaurant bills. And nobody here wants to pay for that" would have finished the conversation with some laughs and a point made.
Always make it about the person listening.
Often our job as coders is being interpreters: from business language to technical language and vice-versa.
Try explaining your current project to a friend who doesn't code, using their own words. If they get it, you're winning.
Explaining complex ideas simply is one of the most underrated skills to stand out as a coder. Truth is, the senior you get, the less it's about coding and the more about communication.
That's why I made clear communication one of the strategies in my book, Street-Smart Coding: 30 Ways to Get Better at Coding. That's the practical guide I wish I had on my journey from junior to senior.
Top comments (0)