Of course, soft skills matter, but which ones? In my opinion, every engineer should get better at these two: active listening and clear communication.
Listening is not hearing but being present, processing information, and asking the right follow-up questions. Too often, we listen passively, just waiting for our turn to speak - and sometimes even hoping that we do not need to speak at all :) yup … that was me.
Clear communication is all about conveying ideas, decisions, and information clearly and unambiguously. Be concise, structured, and complete, and say just enough to get the point across without unnecessary fluff. Apply this to your meetings, Slack messages, and even documentation.
Empathy is what most engineers lack; please get better at it.
One thing I proactively do is observe and measure the number of clarifications people ask for in response to my communication. If there are too many such questions, then my message probably was not as clear as I thought it was. I go back, iterate on it, and ask myself:
- Did I really listen?
- Did I communicate it well?
- Did I really understand what I was talking about?
This happened to me some time back, so this comes from personal experience :) I am a work in progress, and probably always will be :)