Soft Skills Engineering - Jamison Dance and Dave Smith

View Top 200 Chart

Back to Rankings Page

Software How-To
**Soft Skills Engineering – Jamison Dance and Dave Smith**

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.

Latest Episodes:

Episode 85: Annoying Know-it-alls and Company Headshots Nov 30, 2017

Show notes

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 Nov 23, 2017

Show notes

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 Nov 16, 2017

Show notes

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 Nov 09, 2017

Show notes

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 Nov 02, 2017

Show notes

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 Oct 29, 2017

Show notes

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 Oct 19, 2017

Show notes

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.

Episode 78: Endless Rewrites and Fake Deadlines Oct 13, 2017

Show notes

This week Jamison and Dave answer these questions:

We’ve re-written the project I’m on 10 times without launching. What should I do?
I worked hard to hit a deadline, only to find out the deadline was moved. How do I avoid this in the future?

We talked a bit about the value of deadlines way back in episode nine if you want to hear some positive things about deadlines.

Episode 77: Boss Wants Me To Speak and The 2% Raise Oct 04, 2017

Show notes

This week Jamison and Dave answer these questions:

My boss wants me to speak at conferences, but I’m very new to software. What should I do?
How do I get more than a 2% raise? That is the company average.

We talked about conferences a bit more way back in episode 6.

We also talked more about playing the salary game in episode 23, which is a technique for sharing salary information with your co-workers.

Episode 76: Writing Goals and Firing Jokes Sep 25, 2017

Show notes

This week Jamison and Dave answer these questions:

My organization requires me to set goals for myself. What advice do you have for writing good technical and non-technical goals?
My managers openly joke about firing people all the time. What should I do?

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

Soft Skills Engineering – Jamison Dance and Dave Smith

Related Podcasts

Links

Stay Connected