Podcast · Tech & Science

Soft Skills Engineering

by Jamison Dance and Dave Smith · English · Tech & Science

It takes more than great code to be a great engineer. Soft Skills Engineering is a weekly advice podcast for software developers about the non-technical stuff that goes into being a great software developer.

New episodes: Weekly
Typical length: 34 min
Latest: 5 Oct 2026
Language: English

Latest episode

5 Oct 2026 · 33 min

Episode 533: I'm drowning in AI slop from lazy coworkers

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: Hey Dave and Jamison. I don’t know what to do with the amount of the AI slop I have to review and I’m getting close to burnout. I have a lot of context on my project, so my colleagues see me as a point of reference. Additionally, at a past job, I was a tech lead and could easily cover for TL if I wanted to (which I don’t) and I feel like the TL of my project and some of my teammates are taking advantage of this. Every day I receive a lot of low quality documents to review. For example, our TL creates sloppy project planning documents…

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Earlier episodes 29 most recent

28 Sep 2026 · 31 min

Episode 532: My new company is an absolute mess and should I get an English-speaking job as a Japanese engineer?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: Hi Dave and Jamison, I’ve been a Java backend dev for over 10 years. After getting laid off from a job I loved, I spent 3 tough months job hunting. I eventually landed a full-stack role at a non-tech company where I am the entire front-end department. The team is a mess: A CTO who hasn’t coded in years and calls me directly to assign tasks, all labeled “highest priority.” When I asked the CTO and CEO if we had QA, they literally laughed at me. Prod releases are “tested” by the CTO before telling me to push immediately. I’m at a…
21 Sep 2026 · 34 min

Episode 531: Shallow feedback and my coworker is a huge sloperator

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: Listener Jame ain’t no dance asks,! Hey Space Therapists, I am a consultant that helps big companies to fix all kind of stuff. It’s ridiculous how many different hats I wear. One day I’m the interim PM, the other day I am telling SAP devs how to use a coding agent, next day I gather stakeholder requirements for a customer self service portal. I do all of these tasks on a fairly shallow level and all of that work is happening without much coordination from my company. I think I do a good, but it’s hard gathering feedback on my work,…
14 Sep 2026 · 36 min

Episode 530: Product engineering and why does my team never challenge my ideas?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: Listener Myamax myamax says, I just listened to episode 527 and could really use some advice on being good at interviews. I was recently laid off with a decent severance package, so I have some breathing space. I’ve had several interviews, and I usually get past the initial screenings, but I don’t shine in technical rounds. I’m a career switcher, and most of my tech career has been in analytics at a big company. I’m good at distilling things, very good at debugging and navigating mazes of corporate legacy, but I haven’t really built…
7 Sep 2026 · 34 min

Episode 529: Zoom calls on my open floor plan and laconic staff engineer

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: Hi Jamison and Dave, jesters of my daily commute. I’m a *mechanical* engineer at a megacorp, and since people are people, I find most of your advice transfers pretty well. I’m the tech lead within a small-ish org of about 25 people. We’re in-office, and split between two locations (in a similar time zone), and multiple different projects. This means that there are a lot of Zoom meetings between locations. Lately, I’ve been having an issue with engineers deciding to take these meetings from their desks in our open office plan rather…
31 Aug 2026 · 34 min

Episode 528: Sleepy family software business and leaving after an acquisition

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: A listener named “Will angel answer my question?” asks, Hi, I recently joined a new company about 1.5 months ago. It is the technology arm of a family-owned business group that has existed for over 30 years, providing technology services to all the other companies in the group. After a one-week onboarding, I was assigned to a team. After 2–3 days, I still had no tasks, so I asked a coworker to pair program with me so I could learn more about the processes and continue learning. The task was easy, and we finished it in less than a day.…
24 Aug 2026 · 38 min

Episode 527: I lost my job after 10 years and am I too old to switch to a security career?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: Hello Dave and Jamison! I’m a longtime listener going back to the early days of the podcast, and I’ve listened to every episode since. When I started listening, I was beginning my career as a software engineer. Your advice has truly helped shape how I think about work, engineering, leadership, and all the weird human stuff that comes with building software. Now I’m more than 10 years into my career, and I’ve run into a problem that I suspect many experienced engineers are dealing with right now. In episode 521, you talked about how…
17 Aug 2026 · 33 min

Episode 526: Why can't I get promoted so quickly after my last promotion and I got hired as a software engineer but ended up doing ops

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: Hi Dave & Jamison! I’ve been listening for almost a year now and have worked through nearly your entire back catalog in reverse. The podcast has genuinely helped me become a better engineer, so thank you! I’m two years into my software engineer career at a large infrastructure company. I was promoted to SWE II last year, and this year my manager told me she felt my work was promotion-worthy, but because I’d just been promoted and she had others on the team to consider, she wants to target me for next year’s cycle instead. She gave me…
10 Aug 2026 · 29 min

Episode 525: How do I save my company of 500 people and my new company is insane with AI

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: Hey Dave and Jamison, First, I love your show and it has now been part of my Monday evening routine for many years to listen to your podcast while cooking dinner. I recently joined a mid-sized software company (500 people) as a senior data engineer. The salary is a significant bump from my previous job and I really like the team on a personal level. Three months after I joined, the company laid off half its employees and announced a strategic pivot away from their previous core business to become an “AI-first company” and develop new…
3 Aug 2026 · 32 min

Episode 524: My CTO AI-codes big piles of slop and early mornings, late meetings

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: I work for a small software company on a team of about 7 or 8 engineers. I like working here. I like the people, the autonomy, the pay, my boss, and the stack among other things. I try to remind myself of this regularly so I don’t take it for granted. I’ve been here for about 2.5 years and would love to continue working here. Our CTO, like many, has become a big AI cowboy coder. Every few months, he vibe codes a new project and then decides to interrupt the full workloads that we have a limited number of engineers to do to hand his…
27 Jul 2026 · 33 min

Episode 523: (Rerun of 331) Prickly ticket and title downgrade

This is a rerun of episode 331. In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: Listener ninjamonkey says, I am a new grad who is half a year into the role now at a very large company. Recently, a senior engineer on my team asked me to create a ticket for an infra team for a problem with a service. I provided logs and steps to reproduce the issue and did a health check before submitting. Right after, the manager of the team put me into a group chat with their team, asked why I created the ticket and told me to start doing my job and they can’t debug for me. From these interactions…
20 Jul 2026 · 29 min

Episode 522: I stayed too long at my first job and should I get a masters degree

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: I stayed too long at my first company and now my career is ruined? Hi both, long time listener. (Since I graduated university 4 years ago actually and felt I could never find a job but listening to you guys made me feel not like such an outcast in our field.) I graduated in 2022. Didn’t really apply around much and almost immediately accepted the full time offer from the company I did my internship with during my degree. And fast forward to middle of 2026… I am still here. I’ve long stopped growing as an engineer and have actually…
13 Jul 2026 · 31 min

Episode 521: negotiating . . . now? and doing good work is not enough for promotion?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: Dwill Ainghell asks, During the golden era of software development, it was commonly stated that you should always negotiate job offers. The argument was that the company has invested significant time and resources into you as a candidate and there is always some wiggle room for negotiations. A popular article / podcast by Patrick McKenzie likened it to doing something slightly uncomfortable like “reciting poetry while simultaneously standing on one foot” with almost no downside. (…
6 Jul 2026 · 40 min

Episode 520: I came back to my former team and was shocked by AI and my team does not care at ALL about the code

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: Hey Dave & Jamison, Long time listener. Love the podcast. I recently rejoined a remote team that I worked with in the past. I was super stoked to rejoin this team because they were collectively one of the most competent and technically excellent teams I’ve ever worked with. And they’re all genuinely nice people as well. I left the team before AI coding had really caught on, but coming back to the team has been a huge shock to me. Almost everyone now exclusively writes code with AI. PR descriptions are all AI generated, and code review…
29 Jun 2026 · 34 min

Episode 519: Why does my team not have a tech lead and rumors!

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: Hi D&J! Question from Sweden! I’m a senior dev that have seen a lot of orgs without tech lead and/or staff engineer roles. I know some companies have them, but mostly newer more techy companies. Bigger older less techy companies usually have non-coding “architects”. Though that’s one title I have no good experience of, just neutral ones or worse :) In particular I’ve been in many teams without a tech lead (all developers are equal, no tiebreaker vote). It’s often successful due to a leader and/or consensus emerging organically and…
22 Jun 2026 · 33 min

Episode 518: stuck at startup and is my employer mistreating me because I'm on a visa?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: I have been at a small startup company for 5 years now. It’s a very small technical team, 4 devs and a tech lead that contributes code & architecture. I am getting a small raise this week for my 5 years but it’s a smaller raise than I was expecting. We’re an all remote team across the globe but I had a dev co worker in the same city as me just leave the company. This has put more pressure on me as I’m the only dev in the primary time zone we operate in, everyone else is east coast or opposite side of the world. With the added pressure…
15 Jun 2026 · 32 min

Episode 517: Is it good for my career to work at a SaaS company and why am I being asked to manage two teams?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: Hey guys. This question comes all the way from New Zealand. Recently discovered your podcast about a month ago, and have been catching up with older episodes on morning walks ever since - you guys are awesome. Anyway - the question: Is it more beneficial to work for a company where the software itself is the product (SaaS etc) or does it no longer matter given the rise of the robots anyway? For context - I’ve been working for a telco/internet company for just over five year. Initially when I joined there was a huge roadmap of software…
8 Jun 2026 · 37 min

Episode 516: Not a baby and my product manager doesn't know the product

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: My company follows scrum, with daily standups. We got a new scrum master. He is very formal and procedural and I struggle with our daily meetings. He goes through a long list of assigned tickets, asking each ticket owner about status and info on progress. We are all engineers with many years of experience but it feels like we are in the kindergarten. We don’t have deep expertise about each others work. It is important to know what each of us is doing more or less, but going deep in these issues makes me disconnect, and I think these…
1 Jun 2026 · 35 min

Episode 515: My junior team member won't listen to me and will I be the dumbest employee at a quantum computer company?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: Hi from a long-time listener and first-time caller. I need some advice on a toxic workplace situation. I’m currently unhappy with my job due to a difficult dynamic with a colleague. My manager put us on the same team, meaning we share responsibility for our output. Although this colleague is technically a level below me, they act as though they have seniority. This creates significant friction: they’re resistant to advice, insist they’re always right, and refuse to accept reality even when they can’t deliver what’s required. They’re…
25 May 2026 · 38 min

Episode 514: Trust issues and underperformers and my coworker resents me for being faster

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: My parent organization has trust issues: we registered on a recent survey as one of the lowest across the bigger software org (thousands of employees). There are two groups: functional, trustworthy people who get stuff done, and people who are behind, stuck, or just not working. Those struggling say they need better emotional support, but there is consistent, documented evidence that they cannot keep up. I’m perpetually frustrated that there are only two or three people in an org of 30 who can effectively complete tasks and manage the…
18 May 2026 · 37 min

Episode 513: Forgotten employee and what skills actually matter in the AI world

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: How long until I am ethically obligated to let my company know I’m doing no work? There was a big re-org at the company I recently joined. It’s a huge financial company, so there’s a lot of bureaucracy. Somehow in this mess I was kicked off the first team I joined so that I was pending re-assignment. It’s been a month and I haven’t been re-assigned. Instead of being in between jobs not working, I am currently in between teams, but still getting paid! This feels unintentional on the part of the company as no one has followed up with…
11 May 2026 · 43 min

Episode 512: Can non-engineers really contribute code with AI and not sharing

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: Should I declare my struggle with this AI world we live in here? Nah. I mean, I’d like the hype to die down, a lot, but we keep getting new tools and I get to experiment, so here we are. My real struggle, and this podcast is implicated in it, is around non-technical people contributing to production systems. Why are we so obsessed with this idea? COBOL tried it. Low-code and no-code tried it. BDD and Gherkin aspire to it. Yet time and again the field demonstrates that you need people who know their stuff. To “democratize” software…
4 May 2026 · 35 min

Episode 511: Should I take a temporary management position and performance-based bonuses

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: I’m approaching 15 years of experience with the last 7 years at fang. About a year ago I was promoted to staff engineer (thanks to the podcast) and switched to an adjacent team under the same director. I have never actively pursued a management role but I’ve been starting to think about it more. A colleague of mine just announced they need to take extended medical leave (1-2 months) and I was asked to fill in as a temporary manager while they are out. How do I go about managing a team if everyone knows it’s short lived? Should I just…
27 Apr 2026 · 34 min

Episode 510: Old and behind and how do I hang on for the last few years until retirement?

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: I work at a large remote company. We meet up once or twice a year. I don’t really know much about my engineering coworkers aside from the 5 people on my team, so the in person meet ups seem like a good place for me to get to know people from the other teams. I am a career switcher, and am currently a mid level IC (borderline junior) in my late 30s and a youthful appearance. At these meetups, my position and appearance (and honestly, possibly my demeanour) makes me feel like I am expected to socialize with other ICs in their 20s.…
20 Apr 2026 · 36 min

Episode 509: I hate AI software dev, so should I become a manager and leading, not doing

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: I am a senior software engineer at big tech and need a career change. With the rise of AI, I no longer enjoy this profession and panic everyday just waiting for a huge round of layoffs. At this point I feel like I am on some assembly line hitting enter like a monkey. Therefore I have been thinking of changing lanes and would like to get into engineering management. On the one hand I have enjoyed mentoring, strategic planning and coordinating projects across vendors and across teams, but besides that I don’t have clear evidence that…
13 Apr 2026 · 33 min

Episode 508: My company is an unethical spammer and my coworkers take so much sick time

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: How can I get our company to follow the law and stop sending SPAM without being regarded as negative? We’re sending out emails that don’t comply with CAN-SPAM, and I think we should comply due to the risks, but I don’t want to risk any blowback! People want the emails to look more ‘human’ sent, and putting your mailing address at the end of an email is not very human, so we’re not doing that… It’s a medium startup (500 people), but I’m close enough to the marketing work that they might know it was me! Should I send an email to our…
6 Apr 2026 · 33 min

Episode 507: I got fired unexpectedly and breadth and depth

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: Hey there, I started a new job in August at a large European retailer. There were ups & downs, but long story short, my weekly one-on-ones with my manager was either positive or neutral. This was my second job after graduating, so the firm factored in, I’d like to think, when setting expectations this was my first time switching codebases and tech stacks. On January 3rd, I was fired in the last month of my 6 month probation. This was a total surprise. My tech lead told me I required too much assistance from others to finish my tasks.…
30 Mar 2026 · 41 min

Episode 506: I hate my job with AI and my team-mate thinks I suck

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: Hi Djavison, I’ve heard y’all say something along the lines of “this is the most exciting time to build software” in a few recent episodes. I’m glad that has been your experience and seems to be the experience of many others. But for me as someone 5 years into the career who is, thankfully, employed—I can’t help mourning a job that no longer exists. Obviously, there are still lots of us with the job title “software engineer” that create software. But, what I originally fell in love with doesn’t really seem like a thing you can get…
23 Mar 2026 · 46 min

Episode 505: Called to the principal's office and my team leads are super dogmatic

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: I’m a senior software engineer at a remote company (~500–700 people), and over the last year a new HR org replaced our old people team. They’ve spent six months building a new goals/leveling framework. During a public meeting I asked in slack: “We’ve had goals before and then stopped using them. How will these be different?” Nobody answered directly. The next day I was pulled into a meeting. The new VP of HR had screenshotted my question and sent it up my management chain. My manager told me they were on my side but leadership didn’t…
16 Mar 2026 · 32 min

Episode 504: Should I quit my AI job before my first day and professional button-clicker

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: Hi Jamison and Dave. Eight years into my software engineering career, all of it at Series B and C startups, I’ve been craving two things: a recognizable brand name on my resume and the chance to work on real scale problems. After a long search, I finally got both. The catch? I got them in the wrong order. I accepted an offer at one of the hottest and fastest-growing AI companies in the application layer space. Exciting work, smart people, real momentum, but not quite a household name yet, and not quite facing the kind of scaling…

About Soft Skills Engineering

Soft Skills Engineering is a English tech & science podcast from Jamison Dance and Dave Smith. Melo plays each episode straight from the publisher's own feed — no ads added, no account needed — and remembers where you stopped, in this browser only.

Publisher: Jamison Dance and Dave Smith
Language: English
Category: Tech & Science
New episodes: Weekly
Typical length: 34 min
Latest episode: 5 Oct 2026
Feed: RSS — paste into any podcast app
Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1091341048
Website: softskills.audio

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