When it comes to language, most programmers seem more comfortable with, say, Java and Python than English.
And some people would argue that’s completely fine. You didn’t hire your engineers to write articles or produce ebooks -- you hired them to create, maintain, and refine your organization’s technical assets.
But according to the experts, having good writers on your engineering team is essential. Want proof? Mike Borozdin, senior director of engineering at DocuSign and Microsoft alum, told Business Insider, “"I would advise folks in software to do one thing, and that's write.”
Shubhuro Saha, a software engineer at Facebook, devoted an entire blog post to explaining why people in his profession should write.
Stack Overflow cofounder Joel Spolsky argues, “The difference between a tolerable programmer and a great programmer is not how many programming languages they know, and it's not whether they prefer Python or Java. It's whether they can communicate their ideas.”
Now you’re probably wondering why these important people are so gung-ho on engineers who can write. Let’s explore a few of the reasons.
Writing Helps Programmers Express Their Ideas
Technical concepts are usually tricky to explain to other people -- especially if those other people aren’t programmers. By practicing their writing skills, engineers automatically improve their communication skills. They’ll find it much easier to share their thought process, ideas, and insights with their bosses, colleagues, and direct reports.
Writing Helps Programmers Participate in Discussions
The engineering community is extremely active online. You can find hundreds of thousands of conversations on messaging boards like Quora, Stack Exchange, Reddit, and more. Anyone who participates in these threads must be able to clearly and accurately take a stance or advance an idea. If they can’t do that, none of the other programmers will understand them (or respect them). Your programmers are advocates for your employer brand. If they’re not visible online, your recruiting efforts will inevitably suffer.
Writing Helps Programmers Create Better Documentation
As every engineer knows, good documentation is crucial. Not only does it help you pick up where you left off -- or alternatively, go back to old code after several months or a year -- it also makes it possible for your team members to work on the same code base with minimal confusion. Without proper writing skills, the quality of a programmer’s documentation will decline.
