brittanyellich/brittanyellichblog/posts

Software Engineer interviews are hard. Really hard. They tend to follow a certain familiar pattern.

You get a call from someone in HR who pre-screens you to make sure you aren't a serial killer.

Next, you're put through a rigorous process of questions and technical problems that, if you're lucky enough, you studied recently and can make your way through fairly easily. If not, the default answer (like many things in software) ends up being "I don't know off the top of my head, but I could Google it".

Finally, you're faced with one last obstacle. The social. Easily the most embarrassing one to do poorly on, the team wants to see if you fit in. Cue every memory from high school where I was picked last to play sports in gym class. That one just hurts.

There's another common thread, however, that I've seen at many of the places I've interviewed with. A lot of these places have interviewed based on the following philosophy: Anyone who has made it a few years in this field can probably learn the technical side. It's whether or not you can hold a conversation, with a customer, stakeholder, or even coworker, that is the most valuable skill to hire for.

That's why I would argue that soft skills, more so than technical prowess, may be more worthwhile to work on. In particular, I argue that empathy is the most important skill that any engineer can have.

Empathy allows you to