I tend to think of developing technical skills horizontal growth and developing soft skills in terms of vertical growth (although its obviously not that simple). With horizontal growth you are broadening your range within a domain, with vertical growth you are developing, transforming, and maturing as a person - vertical growth is more organic and can't be forced but it does come from practicing the ancient dictum of 'know thyself' - experience combined with self-reflection.
I like the vertical/horizontal model. An interesting way of thinking about it.
I do thing vertical growth can be pushed and accelerated through a combination of a desire to improve, a willingness to really engage with self-reflection and the support of a good training programme and coach/mentor. Progressing from training to mentoring and finally coaching as someone improves.
Yes - especially that mentoring and coaching element - we've used the 'confidence to teach others' as our highest score in our self-scoring model in our tool to help people self-reflect on their leadership capabilities.
Naming things in engineering is one of the hardest tasks, we've wondered whether to name it an 'assessment' tool or a 'self-reflection' tool - currently we're opting for 'self-reflection' but we've open-sourced it so people can create PRs with improvement suggestions - here's the link if it's of any interest: https://github.com/human-centric-engineering/engineering-leadership-self-reflection
Great article John! I found freelancing to be a true test of soft skills. You have to deliver a working solution on time, but it's up to your soft skills what your compensation will be!
Agree with you here John. In my experience, those who seek to master and improve both technical and people skills tend to advance their careers both faster and further. Software Engineering is a very human-centric endeavour, despite the persistent tropes of the headphones-on, basement-dwelling, isolated developer.
I tend to think of developing technical skills horizontal growth and developing soft skills in terms of vertical growth (although its obviously not that simple). With horizontal growth you are broadening your range within a domain, with vertical growth you are developing, transforming, and maturing as a person - vertical growth is more organic and can't be forced but it does come from practicing the ancient dictum of 'know thyself' - experience combined with self-reflection.
I like the vertical/horizontal model. An interesting way of thinking about it.
I do thing vertical growth can be pushed and accelerated through a combination of a desire to improve, a willingness to really engage with self-reflection and the support of a good training programme and coach/mentor. Progressing from training to mentoring and finally coaching as someone improves.
Yes - especially that mentoring and coaching element - we've used the 'confidence to teach others' as our highest score in our self-scoring model in our tool to help people self-reflect on their leadership capabilities.
Naming things in engineering is one of the hardest tasks, we've wondered whether to name it an 'assessment' tool or a 'self-reflection' tool - currently we're opting for 'self-reflection' but we've open-sourced it so people can create PRs with improvement suggestions - here's the link if it's of any interest: https://github.com/human-centric-engineering/engineering-leadership-self-reflection
Great article John! I found freelancing to be a true test of soft skills. You have to deliver a working solution on time, but it's up to your soft skills what your compensation will be!
Thanks. Yes going freelance or building a business/startup really shines a light on the importance of the soft skills - and any areas you can improve.
Agree with you here John. In my experience, those who seek to master and improve both technical and people skills tend to advance their careers both faster and further. Software Engineering is a very human-centric endeavour, despite the persistent tropes of the headphones-on, basement-dwelling, isolated developer.
It takes a team to build most software these days.
And where it doesn't, where the solopreneurs succeed, they do so due to their people skills.
This is spot on - technical skills are a must, people skills are bonus to push you from good software engineer to great one 👍