Real tech people don't blather.
Yeah, I know, that's not "hard data". It's a pretty consistent pattern, though. Tech people have to be able to communicate with precision; they usually don't do "blowing smoke".
Yeah, I know, that's not "hard data". It's a pretty consistent pattern, though. Tech people have to be able to communicate with precision; they usually don't do "blowing smoke".
Ah this fun gatekeeping meme rears it's head again.
So how do you define "tech" people? Do you have a scorecard?
How do they meet your assessment for "real"? Cohesive organization of atomic matter generally constitutes "real" in a lot of physics definitions.
I'd argue trying to label someone a "real tech person" is a laughably subjective exercise that's so corrupted by personal bias and toxicity as to be utterly useless in evaluating someone's capability to participate in organized software engineering.
Case in point: I have worked with several folks, in FAANG, who by all technical standards were "real" tech people. Polyglot programmers, could tackle any sticky logic problem.
Ask them to communicate their solution to other engineers? To communicate with others with empathy? Be able to navigate conversations with directors and VPs about broadly implementing their solutions? Absolutely, 100% fell on their face. Couldn't do it. They couldn't form a cohesive, understandable, actionable statement about their work to save their lives. They'd go off on some completely pointless technical tangent that had little to do with the problem at hand.
Code reviews they participated in ground to a complete fucking halt. Not because they actually addressed meaningful technical issues. No, they wanted to pontificate and show off how much smarter they were.
In my not totally hard-data experience, people that maybe didn't have quite the "real tech people" skills but were expressive, capable communicators often actually shipped more meaningful work, more often, and built organizational equity not just for themselves, but for their teammates and managers too.
Software development at any scale, like it or not, involves working with other people. In my experience people that go around gatekeeping and using some hilariously subjective ruler to grade "realness" aren't very effective at all.
Sure, it's a confrontational response, because I've seen too many solid, empathetic, capable individuals run out of tech by toxic gatekeeping bullshit just like this.
Then all I'm left to manage and work with are toxic, self-aggrandizing, "um akshually" engineers who rate appearing smarter than others over working well with others and getting things done.
edit: Have a great day, I'm going to let this one go. Things to do, code to write :)
It really comes down to this: You can't blather at the computer. You have to make very precise statements to the computer. If you can't be precise in your communications, you can't program.
That usually spills over into human communications, too. People who can talk to computers can usually talk to humans who can talk to computers, because they can use at least some of the same terms with the same meanings.
And they can talk with the same mindset. You can't show off to the computer. You can't get the code to compile or to run by using more flowery wording. Tech people tend to carry that mindset into their communication with each other.
You like the posters approach? Fine. I don't find their style (or yours) to be either healthy or productive and it just can stress teams out to have to work with someone super high need.
It's the same recycled logic of people who want to return to the times of being able to say whatever they want, and people who are offended just "need to move on".
This kind of thinking is why homophobia/misogyny/racism is still so prevalent in tech. Dog whistles like "real tech people" or "super high need" or "people that just can't move on".
It's a lot more convenient and dismissive to associate it with some kind of lack of performance. "Oh they should just focus on the code, thank god for all the coders who never want to attend meetings and just code..."
I know you don't like my "style", but I'm afraid most organized software development is starting to become more aware of the need to be empathetic and accepting of the human element, not less, and just "getting over it and coding" isn't an acceptable answer anymore.
Is this unusual?
The issue is that some people confuse being polite with blathering.
Maybe mixed in with all the microaggression / toxic work environment type stuff?
The folks who code are usually like, hey, let me show you this, or do you have time to look at this.
THe managers, sales etc folks never say this. They will schedule you for long long boring meetings on any topic they can think of.