Empathy might be the one skill every engineer should focus on

Becoming a Better Engineer — Part 2

“In every walk with nature, one receives far more than he seeks”. — John Muir

In part 1 of this series, I talked about intuition and how it can help engineers improve their performance. In this part 2, I will talk about another soft skill critical for engineers— empathy.

How it all started

I don’t think it is a secret to anyone that it is often hard for salespeople and engineers to work together.

In every single company I worked with, engineers and salespeople always seemed to be on a collision course.

Salespeople and engineers had different lunch tables, different working schedules, and different dress codes. It was easy to know who was part of the engineering team and who was part of the sales team.

It was also very common to hear stories about the “others”— in my case, the salespeople trying to sale features and products that didn’t exist and push them to engineers to deliver in record time without even asking them if it was possible.

As a fairly junior engineer, I didn’t question much these stories. I needed to belong and feel I was…