Today I stumbled upon a blog post titled: Undervalued Software Engineering Skills: Writing Well by Gergely Orosz. That can be found here: https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/on-writing-well/. I found this linked tangentially where the author was mentioning that in order to create clear diagrams that everyone can follow, honing your writing skills in general is one aspect of accomplishing that.
In this blog post, the author talks about how writing and communicating is a very under-appreciated skill that a software developer can have. I think that software devs have this stigma that they are not great communicators and maybe not particularly good with words, so this may be a surprise to some. However, writing well is the first step in creating diagrams that can be followed and amended by a team that is working on a project.
As someone that has worked in the corporate world for a long time with massive amounts of cross-communication between different departments, I can tell you that writing is something that people in every profession could stand to do better. Sometimes something as simple as communicating your thoughts precisely, concisely, and interestingly can be enough to get you noticed, even in a large corporate environment.
The author mentions that for a software dev, writing can be a tool to “influence engineers and other teams outside of your immediate peers.” He also frequently mentions durability, and how the better you are at writing, the more “durable” your decisions, trade-offs, and ideas will be. This will not only help your own career, but will help your team manager their project better.
I am pretty passionate about writing, and I think that in any career, having a grasp on good writing practices can make a huge difference for how you are perceived by your peers, and for a skill that is often seen as ancillary, can be a real game-changer.
From the blog CS@Worcester – Alan Birdgulch's Blog by cjsteinbrecher and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.