A person is not a bug that you can fix

Working remotely has its challenges. Sometimes, I found it awkward to explain this to people — after all, how hard can it be to work from the comfort of your own home?

The answer is complex — something that probably everyone who was thrown into a remote position during the COVID-19 pandemic intuitively understands. For example, we all know how difficult it can be to mentally differentiate between your “home time” and your “work time”.

An unusual problem

For me, the real challenge of remote work persisted beyond those early shifts of trying not to code in my pajamas.

To this day, I spend a lot of time thinking about how to effectively communicate with my remote teammates and between remote teams. I doubt I’ll ever find a clear-cut answer, but I do want to share my thoughts on the topic — especially since Out of Office is brimming with professionals who are in a similar situation as me.

Can I have a word?

Let’s start with the basics: the social elements of working off-site are always a little unusual. Worse yet, they can be incredibly tedious, as anybody who has spent entire days stuck in virtual meetings can attest to.

To solve this, we text a lot. This means that it is almost guaranteed that some of what you’re trying to say will end up misconstrued by the recipient. Then you’ve got another meeting on your hands, to iron out the miscommunication that just occurred because you were trying to avoid another meeting.

I quickly noticed that misunderstandings were more prevalent between teams than within them, especially across departments. Things could be running relatively smoothly between us software engineers but then fell apart when we had to communicate with marketers or product managers.

I gained my first insight: not everyone communicates the same, and certain groups of people might communicate more similarly amongst each other than towards other groups. Not a world-changing thought, but also shockingly easy to forget.

This was quickly followed up by my second insight: consciously understanding exactly who I am talking to, and appreciating where they might be coming from, would make communicating a million times easier — especially if the person in question could offer the same thoughtfulness to me.

Building empathy

As I mentioned earlier, things were running going pretty well within my own team — I think, mainly, because I intuitively understood my teammates and where they were coming from. I found this interesting because devs are not known for being the best communicators.

In a way, software engineering is a very straightforward discipline: there are issues and there are ways to amend them and your job is to facilitate the latter. But people aren’t a bug that you can “fix” — so there’s a lot of friction happening in between. Nevertheless, talking to my teammates felt easy.

What if I could establish a similar level of understanding towards others?

The first thing I did, counterintuitively, was to communicate with other departments and job roles way more than I strictly speaking needed to. Practice does make perfect, and I felt that this early investment would pay down the line.

I discovered that it was helpful to think of people’s responsibilities within a given project, and about how these might affect their communication.

For example, I find that a lot of CTOs almost feel cutthroat in their approach — they are bracingly direct. Their job is to make sure companies keep running the way they are meant to, and they’re likely to think of everything as a set of potential mistakes that need to be amended ASAP. They’re very busy and want to remain concise. In turn, they might appreciate not having any information sugar-coated. All of this, put together, makes a huge difference in how you perceive a potential conversation with your CTO.

Someone with less experience, by comparison, might appreciate more care when being talked to. Communication will feel slower, and much more deliberate, but sometimes that’s what it takes to maintain efficiency. ‍

When I talk to my teammates, I try to remain as clear as I can: What are you thinking? Why did it not work? Do you feel like you are facing any blockers? Are those blockers coming from within the team? Do you have a knowledge gap?‍

I also find myself using a lot of emojis when talking to someone who I think might appreciate a softer approach to communication. Though I know that this largely creates an even broader platform to have something misconstrued, I think that by and large, it also conveys empathy and a human touch, which can do a lot of heavy lifting for you.

Maybe this is a good time to mention that above all else, I hope people can stay empathetic when they communicate. You might have the best intentions, but even the smallest thing can misconstrued, doubly so from a distance. Being empathetic and understanding is key. If you’re already irritated or frustrated, maybe take a step back before reengaging.

Sometimes, it’s not meant to be

Obviously, you can’t always make it work — after all, you’re only fifty percent of the equation. It’ll happen often enough that you encounter someone who simply doesn’t want to communicate that much (some might put developers at large into this category). That’s where your team leads and seniors come into play. I think it’s valuable to let yourself rely on their experience as managers and mediators when the need arises. If it still doesn’t work out, try not to get frustrated, or take it personally.

Sometimes, you’ll need any ad-hoc mediator who is available — or your team needs you to be one! Often, all it needs is a third party’s perspective.

As I said at the beginning of this article, I don’t think anyone can offer perfectly clear answers, or a universal framework of communication that works for everyone. The key is to talk about it, which is why I wanted to write this piece.

Food for thought

There are two final thoughts I want to share. Firstly, I think educating yourself is invaluable. I get a lot of my insights from podcasts (JS Party, for example), many of which are specifically geared towards software engineers. I’ve also found it useful to dive into books and blogs that are specifically not about developers because I think there are some universal truths out there that you can try to uncover and that will be beneficial to your field. At the end of the day, we’re always dealing with humans.

Secondly, I feel like I’m seeing a whole new generation of engineers who are much more aligned towards soft skills and management and communication, maybe partly inspired by the big tech leaders of today. I think that’s very exciting, and I’m curious to see what this new wave of engineering talent brings to the table.