Which skills is more valuable to you? Hard skills or Soft skills?

@storageninja said in Which skills is more valuable to you? Hard skills or Soft skills?:

@black3dynamite

Soft skills are harder to teach.

This. Assuming that all other things are equal (teachability, motivation, etc.) I would much rather have soft skills.

We do one soft skills class (1-2 day) a year. Focusing on speaker and communication training. It's not cheap but our team is really good at presenting idea's and content as a result.

scottalanmiller

@storageninja said in Which skills is more valuable to you? Hard skills or Soft skills?:

@black3dynamite

it depends on the role

Por que no los dos? I've worked on both over the years. My job requires both.

Soft skills are harder to teach.

This, HUGELY depends on role. For some roles, I don't care at all. For others, soft is all that matters, more or less.

1337

Hard skills is where the rubber meets the road. I believe soft skills are actually easier to learn and as a society we put too much stock into it.

scottalanmiller

@pete-s said in Which skills is more valuable to you? Hard skills or Soft skills?:

Hard skills is where the rubber meets the road. I believe soft skills are actually easier to learn and as a society we put too much stock into it.

I think it depends. Companies might put too much stock in soft skills internally, but externally, soft skills earn most of the money.

StorageNinja

@scottalanmiller said in Which skills is more valuable to you? Hard skills or Soft skills?:

This, HUGELY depends on role. For some roles, I don't care at all. For others, soft is all that matters, more or less.

The problem is roles where you need more technical than soft skills, in consulting end up with that person "fronted" by a project manager etc. If that person doesn't communicate with the PM then eventually that can be a problem. If they only work with other technical team members, eventually toxic personalities cause problems. There are fewer "truly isolated" IT jobs than I think people realize.

scottalanmiller

@storageninja said in Which skills is more valuable to you? Hard skills or Soft skills?:

@scottalanmiller said in Which skills is more valuable to you? Hard skills or Soft skills?:

This, HUGELY depends on role. For some roles, I don't care at all. For others, soft is all that matters, more or less.

The problem is roles where you need more technical than soft skills, in consulting end up with that person "fronted" by a project manager etc. If that person doesn't communicate with the PM then eventually that can be a problem. If they only work with other technical team members, eventually toxic personalities cause problems. There are fewer "truly isolated" IT jobs than I think people realize.

I'd say the opposite. In the enterprise, most I've seen are isolated and soft skills aren't nearly as needed as people seem to say. In the SMB, yeah, it's ALL soft skills. But in the enterprise, so few people need to talk to anyone but other tech people, the interfaces to the outside world are few and far between.

StorageNinja

@scottalanmiller said in Which skills is more valuable to you? Hard skills or Soft skills?:

But in the enterprise, so few people need to talk to anyone but other tech people, the interfaces to the outside world are few and far between.

I agree here, but there is a minimum viable product of soft skills where even other tech people don't want to put up with your shit, or your ability to communicate with other tech people is crap and so you don't get good feedback or collaboration. The 10x engineer who belongs in a closet is something that fewer and fewer companies will put up with. Hell Linus recently admitted he needs to stop being an asshole. Netflix has an official policy to not keep them.

Our engineering have an internal-only R&D conference every year where they pitch idea's and their work to each other (it's like an academic conference with papers and quick talks) and there is a lot of value in them being able to pitch their new crazy idea. We have Internal reading groups, and other presentations that are done weekly where people talk about their work. A ton of good feedback on projects comes from this. Technical skills can be advanced by soft skills.

scottalanmiller

@storageninja said in Which skills is more valuable to you? Hard skills or Soft skills?:

@scottalanmiller said in Which skills is more valuable to you? Hard skills or Soft skills?:

But in the enterprise, so few people need to talk to anyone but other tech people, the interfaces to the outside world are few and far between.

I agree here, but there is a minimum viable product of soft skills where even other tech people don't want to put up with your shit, or your ability to communicate with other tech people is crap and so you don't get good feedback or collaboration. The 10x engineer who belongs in a closet is something that fewer and fewer companies will put up with. Hell Linus recently admitted he needs to stop being an asshole. Netflix has an official policy to not keep them.

Lacking soft skills doesn't make you an asshole, though. That's not the alternative. Soft skills is a lot of things. Being nice isn't one of them. Being nice is just being a good person. Seeming to be nice when you are actually an asshole, now that is a soft skill.

I worked with a guy like that. Came across great, but openly admitted he was a horrible person that would screw you if he could. Great soft skills, mediocre hard skills, not a nice person.