{"id":340,"date":"2021-08-31T14:39:28","date_gmt":"2021-08-31T14:39:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fde.cat\/?p=340"},"modified":"2021-08-31T14:39:28","modified_gmt":"2021-08-31T14:39:28","slug":"118-why-writing-matters-for-engineers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fde.cat\/index.php\/2021\/08\/31\/118-why-writing-matters-for-engineers\/","title":{"rendered":"118. Why Writing Matters for Engineers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Listen<\/em><\/a>
<\/em>Subscribe<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

In this episode, Ian, Laura, and Wesley talk about the importance of communication skills, specifically writing, for people in technical roles. Ian calls writing the single most important meta skill you can have. And the good news is that you can get better at it, with deliberate practice!<\/p>\n

Ian and Wesley both come from engineering backgrounds but have moved into more writing-intensive roles as their careers have progressed. Laura is an instructional designer with experience across many industries. They all agree that writing plays several different important roles for people, whether it\u2019s to educate, persuade, or even mark a decision.<\/p>\n

So if writing is such a critical part of what you\u2019re doing from an engineering perspective, how can you get better at it? Laura offers a handful of practices, including providing context, supplying the appropriate level of detail for the audience, using stories or analogies, incorporating repetition, and finding a good editor (even if it\u2019s yourself coming back to a piece with fresh\u00a0eyes).<\/p>\n

The guests close the episode by sharing some of their favorite resources for improving communication skills, which are listed in the show notes linked\u00a0below.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Click through to listen to the full episode of Code[ish]!<\/p>\n

118. Why Writing Matters for Engineers<\/a> was originally published in Salesforce Engineering<\/a> on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.<\/p>\n

Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ListenSubscribe In this episode, Ian, Laura, and Wesley talk about the importance of communication skills, specifically writing, for people in technical roles. Ian calls writing the single most important meta skill you can have. And the good news is that you can get better at it, with deliberate practice! Ian and Wesley both come from… Continue reading 118. Why Writing Matters for Engineers<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":465,"url":"https:\/\/fde.cat\/index.php\/2021\/09\/14\/10-principles-for-architecture-at-salesforce\/","url_meta":{"origin":340,"position":0},"title":"10 Principles for Architecture at Salesforce","date":"September 14, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"co-written by Ian\u00a0Varley Software engineering can\u2019t be reduced to a set of rules. Rather, it\u2019s about understanding the problems we\u2019re trying to solve, and making trade-offs among competing priorities. It\u2019s nuanced work that requires experience and lots of clear communication. That said, there are some things we think are true\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Technology"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":795,"url":"https:\/\/fde.cat\/index.php\/2023\/11\/21\/writing-and-linting-python-at-scale\/","url_meta":{"origin":340,"position":1},"title":"Writing and linting Python at scale","date":"November 21, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Python plays a big part at Meta. It powers Instagram\u2019s backend and plays an important role in our configuration systems, as well as much of our AI work. Meta even made contributions to Python 3.12, the latest version of Python. On this episode of the\u00a0Meta Tech Podcast, Meta engineer Pascal\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Technology"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":273,"url":"https:\/\/fde.cat\/index.php\/2021\/08\/31\/sre-weekly-issue-258\/","url_meta":{"origin":340,"position":2},"title":"SRE Weekly Issue #258","date":"August 31, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"View on sreweekly.com A message from our sponsor, StackHawk: On February 25 at 10 am PT we are going to show you how easy it is to add application security testing to a #GitLab pipeline. Save your spot for our live session http:\/\/sthwk.com\/gitlab-stackhawk-automation Articles Practiced Humility in Retrospectives When acting\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "SRE"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":256,"url":"https:\/\/fde.cat\/index.php\/2021\/02\/03\/sre-weekly-issue-251\/","url_meta":{"origin":340,"position":3},"title":"SRE Weekly Issue #251","date":"February 3, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"View on sreweekly.com Happy new year! A message from our sponsor, StackHawk: Still looking for a good new years resolution? How about adding application security testing to your CI\/CD pipeline with StackHawk. Get started with our free account. https:\/\/sthwk.com\/freeplan Articles Writing Runbook Documentation When You\u2019re An SRE Tips and tricks\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "SRE"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":867,"url":"https:\/\/fde.cat\/index.php\/2024\/05\/20\/sre-weekly-issue-425\/","url_meta":{"origin":340,"position":4},"title":"SRE Weekly Issue #425","date":"May 20, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"View on sreweekly.com A message from our sponsor, FireHydrant: FireHydrant is now AI-powered for faster, smarter incidents! Power up your incidents with auto-generated real-time summaries, retrospectives, and status page updates. https:\/\/firehydrant.com\/blog\/ai-for-incident-management-is-here\/ Presenting to Engineering Leadership Great practical advice for how to present reliability problems (and your proposed solutions) to e-staff.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "SRE"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":807,"url":"https:\/\/fde.cat\/index.php\/2023\/12\/25\/sre-weekly-issue-404\/","url_meta":{"origin":340,"position":5},"title":"SRE Weekly Issue #404","date":"December 25, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"View on sreweekly.com A message from our sponsor, FireHydrant: Looking to cozy up with a good read this week? Check out \u201cYour guide to better status pages.\u201d It\u2019s a mini masterclass on how to better communicate on your status pages. https:\/\/firehydrant.com\/blog\/your-guide-to-better-incident-status-pages\/ Rule of 10x per 9 For every 9 you\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "SRE"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fde.cat\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fde.cat\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fde.cat\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fde.cat\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fde.cat\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=340"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/fde.cat\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":370,"href":"https:\/\/fde.cat\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340\/revisions\/370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fde.cat\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fde.cat\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fde.cat\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}