Soft Skills Engineering - Jamison Dance and Dave Smith

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**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 494: Am I interviewing all wrong and leaving old team chats Jan 05, 2026

Show notes

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

Dear Damison and Javison, I work at a very small startup (<10 engineers) and am trying to hire 2 engineers. I’m doing the intro/screener interview for these roles & am working with a recruiting firm to source candidates. My problem is that sometimes my intuition tells me that a candidate is not going to make it through our hiring process, but I can’t articulate why. Our hiring process is neither cruel nor unusual, and on paper these candidates have the skills and experience we’re looking for. But I feel a duty to let the hiring process do its work; I want to be principled about this. For reference, I’d say I screen out 2/3 of recruiter-screened candidates, and of those remaining, 2/5 of the candidates have the je ne sais quoi for which I should be saying non, merci. One made it all the way to reference checks! Do I need to do a better job rejecting these nice, smart people instead of wasting our time? Also note that I am not a manager, and although I have a lot of experience interviewing candidates, this is the first time I’ve done the *first* interview with candidates (first-ish; the recruiting firm interviews them first).
Listener Jeppe says,

Hi Soft Skills nation,

What’s the accepted practice with staying or leaving the private chat channels of my previous team?

I work at a large company and recent switched teams internally. I helped establish the team and got along really well with them. The transfer was on good terms (they invited to their Christmas dinner after the transfer!) and my managers agreed that I could always help my old team in case something came up.

I’m still in the internal chat channels for my old team. I love hearing what they’re up to and catching up. They explicitly told me not to be a stranger, so I’m not! However, I don’t think there’s much business value in being in their channels. Sometimes we have more technical chats about internal tools, and it would probably be better if I had those discussion with my new team.

What should I do? Should I just stay until their manager decides to kick me out? Should I be proactive and talk with the manager about it? Should I leave a teary message about how I’m going to miss them all (even if I see them regularly at lunch and outside work sometimes)?

Episode 493: My boss one-ups my negativity and football engineering Dec 29, 2025

Show notes

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

Hey Guys, long time listener, first time asker!

At my BigCorp Co., whenever I talk to my skip level about my concerns, it seems we are playing the ‘Gloom Olympics’ every time we meet. I’ll mention I worked late, and he’ll counter with, ‘That’s nothing, I haven’t slept in three days!’

This repeated lack of empathy is demotivating and I don’t think I have had a fruitful discussion with him.

How can I tackle this? How can I feel heard?
I’ve decided to leave my current job as a software engineer at a large retail chain. This is my first out of university, and I’ve been here three years.

I’m interviewing for two other jobs: one as an engineer at another large retail chain on a team, and another at a world renowned European football club.

That job would be very different. I’d be the first internal dev hire ever, and I was told I should expect no other devs to get hired for 2+ years. I’d write my own tickets and review my own prs. The project would be to build a dashboard to manage the players - drug testing, injuries, rosters - internally.

What should I do? Feedback & mentorship were central to my growth at my current job. I won’t have that at the sports club. My concern is I go to the football team, drink a lot of beer & have a great time, but after 3 years of being my own boss, I’ll think I’m the greatest dev ever but really not have kept up to date with modern trends, forgotten how to take feedback, and written a lot of 💩 code.

Episode 492: Fresh grads and startups or the goog Dec 22, 2025

Show notes

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

Listener AWS multi-region is not real multi-region, ask me how I know asks,

We’ve recently acquired some bright-eyed and bushy-tailed new grads. What have you found to be the most effective way to onboard new grads into development roles? How has it changed (if at all) since the advent of LLMs? I want to make sure my new-grad crushing machine is operating as smoothly as possible considering the recent advancements in developer tooling. Those new grads won’t crush themselves!
Listener Taso asks,

Early in my career I was all-in on startups. Then I spent seven years in big companies in leadership roles. I learned a lot, but the politics and the pace were so slow that at some point I’m pretty sure geological processes were moving faster than our release cycles. So I finally flipped some metaphorical fingers and quit. Since then I’ve been interviewing almost exclusively with startups… except Google, where I somehow ended up with an offer on a team I’d genuinely enjoy. You’ve both bounced between big tech and startups—if you were in my shoes, how would you think about choosing between the two?

Episode 491: Re-arranging deck chairs on the Titantic and my boss leaks private info Dec 15, 2025

Show notes

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

I handed in my resignation this past Monday. During the conversation, my manager confided in me that this coming Wednesday, 25% of the workforce is being laid off.

For context, this is the second round of layoffs. The first round happened a year ago and was a disaster. It was announced via an internal video the night before, but the CEO forgot to mention that the affected employees had already been notified privately. This caused mass panic; thinking they were next, many experienced engineers immediately brushed up their resumes and jumped ship voluntarily. Even my skip-level manager was in the dark. Shortly after that chaos, we were acquired by an American Private Equity firm.

Morale has been at an all-time low ever since, and the writing has been on the wall all year.

Now I am in the awkward position of serving my three-month notice period while walking through the ruins of my company. I am the “lucky one” who quit voluntarily two days before the hammer dropped to join a different company for a massive raise and promotion, while my colleagues are about to lose their jobs.

How do I navigate the next 90 days? How do I interact with the survivors who are likely furious and overworked, knowing I’m already checking out?

Sincerely,

Rearranging Deckchairs on the Titanic
Hello!

I have a bad manager, like really bad. She gets the whole team together to say “so and so is getting laid off tomorrow, or in a month, don’t say anything”. She openly shares employee compensation in 1-1’s, gossips about her boss and team members and takes feedback as personal attacks.

Would you believe me if I said that no one trusts her?

What should I do? I want to contact HR but I have never talked to HR before in my career. I know I can’t tell her because engineers who have offered feedback on team dynamics, or general professionalism, get yelled in 1-1’s. Is this something worth taking to HR or do I just live with it until… I get a new job? If I do say something what do I say? Do I bring up the distrust she has created amongst the team or do I keep it to the poor judgement and unprofessionalism? Do you want to write the letter for me? Yes!? Thanks!

Episode 490: How do I break into software dev from QA automation and underselling Dec 08, 2025

Show notes

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

Hi Dave and Jamison, I’ve been in QA/QA automation for 13 years now with a CS degree, and I’ve been trying to change my role to a software developer for a while. My only issue is that every time I brought my career aspirations to my managers they seemed to “not care” or give vague answers to “kick the can down the road”. In the past I fully demonstrated I can do the work by submitting bug fixes, writing and deploying a few microservices by myself (all product feature work), on top of performing my QA duties. I get high marks in my performance reviews, but that doesn’t seem to be enough! I also seem to attract some resentment from my team (silently but it’s noticed) as they see a QA trying to soak up their dev work and I get a strong “stay in your lane” vibe. I do it to help them, not take all of their work. Any advice? Am I approaching this the wrong way? And what would you do in my situation? Thanks and all the best!
Hi!

Three years ago, I relocated from a third-world country to Europe for work. I tend to undersell myself a lot. I know I am a competent, hard-working, and smart engineer. I have strong opinions and can evaluate trade-offs. I can participate in discussions about complex systems, and I have experience managing projects.

But sometimes I’m afraid of looking dumb and scared of confrontation. This means I rarely voice my opinions or suggestions. I often let go of them at the slightest objection, even if I believe the other person is mistaken. Whenever I speak or comment on a subject in Slack, I always use phrases like “I’m not 100% sure”, “as far as I remember”, or “I have to look it up but I think … “. These would not matter If I was showing my confidence through other means like participating in discussions confidently, but these all add up to create an image of someone reliable in getting things done, but not reliable at taking more responsibility.

I was not like this before moving. Occasionally I struggle with the language when in big meetings or talking about complex matters, but I’m comfortable with English. It has an effect for sure, but it is not the cause.

I’m going to start a new position and I want to have a longer career there. But I’m afraid that I can not give myself the head start I know I’m capable of. How can I improve my own personal onboarding process and let my new colleagues and manager know how lucky they are to have me on their team?

Episode 489: Ethical dilemma for a gambling app dev and ethical employers Dec 01, 2025

Show notes

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

Hey Jamison and Dave, love your show!

A question for you guys coming all the way from the Netherlands 🧀

I’ve started as a software engineer in a gambling company lately and the moral aspect of it bothers me a bit.

And while listening to you talking about the importance of accessibility in the last episode (#488) I came up with this moral dilemma: should a developer push for making a gambling app more accessible for users with disabilities or better not to? 😅

Thank you 🖤
Listener Arie Marie asks,

What are some good ways to research prospective employers to see if they have a strong commitment to ethical and human values? What are good questions to ask prospective employers during an interview? How can I be a developer and do what I love, and know that I’m not making the income inequality greater? How do you develop a lens to look at a company and discern it’s positive impact? How do you know if you’re making the world a better place?

Episode 488: How do I survive in a culture of optics and jira slacker Nov 24, 2025

Show notes

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

Hey Dave and Jamison,

Big fan of the show — listening from Portugal! (Proof that even across the Atlantic, software politics are universal.)

I’m a tech lead, and lately I’ve noticed a culture where people seem to care way more about how things look than what actually gets done. It’s like the appearance of productivity matters more than real impact. Honestly, it drives me nuts!!

I know politics are part of any organization, and way more in a leadership role, but this feels excessive. As someone who values substance and solid engineering, how do I deal with or influence this kind of culture without losing my sanity (or turning into one of those “optics-first” people myself)?

Thanks for all the insights and laughs. Kudos from Portugal!
Listener Charlie says,

I’m fresh out of college at my first software engineering job. Several months ago I was appointed the accessibility champion for my team. I proposed a few items in the quarterly planning session, but I think it wasn’t enough. My project manager called out our whole team, but I think it was mostly aimed at me.

I’ve been struggling with creating Jira cards, shaping with the team, writing a11y guidelines, etc. It’s tedious and I’m not really familiar with this kind of work. How can I get better at the “other stuff” besides just writing code?

P.S. I volunteered for this responsibility 😩

Episode 487: My manager ignores me during 1:1's and I am required to work in an empty office Nov 17, 2025

Show notes

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

“My manager insists on a weekly 1:1 with me, but he rarely pays attention. He’s often on his laptop, texting, checking email — basically anything but listening. I’ve tried sending agendas, rescheduling, reducing frequency, waiting until he’s less busy — nothing helps. I’ve even started sitting in silence until he notices I’ve stopped talking, but that only works for a minute. This has caused real problems. For example, he almost had me cancel a million-dollar project because he misheard me say “Java” instead of “JavaScript.” When he finally realized I was right, he said, “Every time I heard Java I automatically tuned out.” How do I handle a 1:1 with a manager who won’t pay attention, without risking my work or my relationship with him?”
“I’ve worked for a big retailer for 10 years now and I used to really enjoy it. I liked my team a lot, problems we worked on, technologies we used. Unfortunately the last few yours brought a few rounds of layoffs and my old team doesn’t exist anymore and the new team is pretty much awful. They’re all on the East Coast, while I’m on the West Coast. I’m required to work EST hours but also to commute to the office 5 days a week and sit there alone and talk to my team on zoom. I’m a staff software engineer and I haven’t been programming much for the past year. Most of my time is spent in calls, I start every day with the same 3 calls. I live 50 miles from the office and I take a company shuttle that leaves at 7am. I’m required to join the calls from my phone. I leave for work at 6:30am, I’m back at home at 6:30pm. A few times a week I need to do deployment at 10pm. I tried speaking to my manager and to my director. They don’t care. My every attempt to improve our processes is met with opposition. My manager is afraid of changes. I can’t believe this is where I am but I’m too tired to prepare for job hunting. I can’t afford to quit. I don’t know how to get myself on track and dust off my programming and interviewing skills. I’m praying they’ll lay me off so that I can use the severance to do all those things. But this isn’t really a plan, it’s wishful thinking, and I’m afraid that my career options are getting worse by the minute. Do you have any advice on how to get myself out of this hell hole?”

Episode 486: No one on my team talks and skip level meetings Nov 10, 2025

Show notes

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

I work at a big tech company on a remote team of about 10 people, and most of them have been here for 5+ years. I’m in the “newer” half of the team with 4 years here. My problem is, in group meetings, absolutely NO ONE talks. I mean zero small talk, they have trouble responding to simple yes or no questions. Everyone participates thoroughly when it’s a technical discussion, but it’s clear no one has any interest in speaking more than necessary. We used to have one super talkative guy on our team, and even then it was mostly silence to his chats about his weekend. Is there anything I can do to get these people to speak at least a little bit? It feels insane how little I know about these people after 4 years.

P.S. even in one on one chats, almost all of them shut down small talk
A coworker told me that I should be having quarterly one-on-one’s with my skip to make sure they’re aware of all the good stuff I’ve been up to and my goal of promotion. This sounds correct, but feels weird when I think about setting this up. I haven’t had much direct communication with my skip, just a few responses to his questions during design meetings, but nothing else really. How do I feel less weird about this?

Episode 485: I'm terrible at hiring decisions and my coworker spams us with AI-generated memes Nov 03, 2025

Show notes

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

What signals do you look for when interviewing candidates? I’ve helped interview many people at this point and almost all of the engineers that I marked as “hire” that we brought on board ended up being low performers and were eventually managed out. I wasn’t the only one who approved them either, so not all the blame falls on me, but I’m really doubting my ability to assess talent.

Is hiring inherently just this difficult? Is there anything I can do to improve my judgement or screening approach?
Hi Dave and Jamison,

A coworker on my team won’t stop creating AI generated memes.

We’re a remote team and every meeting he shares memes in the chat whilst we’re trying to have productive conversations. He does this in any type of meeting, including all-hands meetings with C-level execs. On smaller calls he often hijacks it to share his screen and show us a meme he just created about something that was just said.

It started off funny at first. But it’s now a constant distraction.

I find it frustrating because I don’t see how he can be paying attention and contributing to discussions when he’s busy making memes. And, I also don’t appreciate seeing AI versions of my own face being shared into public Slack channels.

How can I address this without sounding like I am anti-fun?

Love the show, been listening for many years, keep up the good work!

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