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Communicate or Fail: The Underrated Skill That Tech Engineers Need

Why tech engineers need to be masters of communication

Have you ever been to a meeting where you came out less intelligent at the end than you went in because you did not understand anything about that meeting? It feels like you were waiting for the end of the meeting to go and continue your working day.

On the other hand, have you ever attended a meeting where you came out with much more information about the subject even though it wasn’t primarily addressed to your profile?

Well, I’m sure we have been in those situations before. Learning how to communicate is a must-know skill that must be mastered in the workspace and in our everyday lives.


For me, communicating effectively means :

  • Having a mastery of the subject: knowing what we present is the first step for an effective communication
  • Adjusting your message to your audience: This required connecting with your audience on their level, putting rhythm into your language and speaking and paying attention to the non-verbal message sent to the audience. It could be their level of concentration or even boredom through their gesture.
  • Finding the right words: Having a rich vocabulary gives you more choices and allows you to find the right words to approach a subject. This can lead to more precise communication. What it says in many words can be expressed in a few words but with a more significant impact. This will help remove noise in communication, resulting in more clarity, precision and less room for interpretation.
  • Establishing a cohesive connection between the critical message and the details: this **** involves transitioning from the general aspects of the subject to specific, incorporating details or more technical aspects.
  • Optionally giving examples/anecdotes: This will help people in the audience **** get to know the subject and not feel that the subject is coming from another planet.

Communication is also the energy we put in when talking about a subject, the non-verbal behaviour, gestures, the emphasis we put in some words, the rhythms…

There is a quote by Jin Rohn which says :

Effective communication is 20% what you know and 80% how you feel about what you know.


We usually consider tech engineers to be nerds who are unable to know how to communicate well. It is like they cannot translate their technical world into simplistic words understandable by a random person.

And sometimes, it can be challenging to find the right words while explaining a subject. But I am on my way to communicating well.

I also concluded that if it is difficult to explain a subject in simple words to an audience that can be non-tech or tech, that means that the subject is not well known.

There is a quote from a French poet and critic Nicolas Boileau which says that:

What is clearly conceived is clearly expressed, and the words to say it come easily.

It is a statement about the importance of clarity in communication. He said that when we clearly understand an idea, we can express it clearly and concisely.


Even though being good in what we do is essential, making people know can have advantages.

There are French expressions which are : "faire savoir" and "savoir faire". This can be translated into English by "know-how" and "make it known". Know-how is good, but making it known is also essential. This can be done by having effective communication.

Communicating more effectively has multiple advantages, depending on how we want to shape our Careers.

As the title of this article says, I will only focus on the advantages in the professional world:

  • More exposure: Good Communication in your area of expertise, or even on the subject you know or are learning, can give you more exposure. And you have a better chance of being chosen to work on that subject, especially if you are in the consulting world. And can be tagged or flagged as the one on that particular subject.
  • Expanding the network: Communicating effectively on what you know can help grow your network. People will connect to you based on the shared knowledge. Also, this can open a way to freelance because people will find that through your knowledge sharing, you seem to be the best fit to answer their technical problem.
  • More money: That is because cash always gratifies people, which gives value to the world by answering people’s problems.

While researching how to communicate effectively, I came across various frameworks. One that caught my attention and I think is the most popular is the "Top-Down approach". This involves transitioning from the general aspects of a subject (Key message) to more details.

There are other variations of this framework, which are :

  • Problems, solutions, reasons
  • Major + supporting ideas

This can be helpful. I have found myself in some meetings where people go straight into details without giving the general aspect of the subject, and only the people who work directly (in peer) with them comment on their intervention, which can be weird.


With the changing workplace and the advent of remote work, meeting communication can be challenging. Remote work impacted communication (meetings…) in many ways. Here are some I have noticed:

  • Feedback from the audience can be absent: In traditional meetings, we could get non-verbal information from the audience, but when in an online meeting, this can’t be easily detectable. Sometimes, people can switch off their computer cameras; it can be like speaking alone without seeing the people to whom they present the subject or even getting their nonverbal feedback.
  • Extra effort on speaking: this **** involves finding additional tips to make communication more effective.

Final Thoughts

In this article, I have exposed my thoughts on an important skill in the professional world and our daily lives. It presents what communicating effectively is, why we need to learn, and the advantages, particularly in our professional lives.

I am also on the journey to communicate more effectively. I am writing this article to reset my mind on the importance of good communication and the framework to make this happen.

Let me know your thoughts on this subject, and let’s grow together.

Did you like my story? Then, Let’s connect on Medium & LinkedIn.


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