How Are Some Engineers So Good At Communicating Their Work?

Aug 23, 2022

Today we’ll cover:

Insights to level up your communication as an engineer
Two upcoming events this week

Estimated reading time: 4.1 minutes 🔖

The Comms Plan

In my 4.5 years at Meta, I was consistently recognized for my ability to collaborate and build consensus. This skill becomes especially important as a Senior/Staff individual contributor, where your impact is defined by your ability to have influence without authority. Clear, consistent communication is the bedrock of influence.

In the last Taro Premium Session, I talked about 3 pillars of effective communication:

Start with the audience. Understand how much context your audience has, and connect the dots for them. Bad news should never be a surprise. Everything you say/write should be as short as possible.
Choose the right medium. Is your goal to build relationships, or to efficiently communicate info? Synchronous (verbal) is better for the former, asynchronous (written) is better for the former. Spend time evaluating the different means of communication available to you: standups, team meetings, email updates, cross-org communication. (See image below)
Be consistent. You should have a regular drumbeat of posts for your work. If you feel like nothing happened, you should explain why nothing happened. For long-running processes like brainstorms or architecture reviews, you should consistently message the timeline and milestones.