I'm going to sound like a broken record: Your soft skills matter more than you probably realize in software engineering. A lot of folks think that technical skills are the only lever. But if you skip developing things like self-awareness and communication, you’re going to hit friction in real work. That’s the stuff where you really have to: - Get feedback - Mess up in collaborations - Sort out misunderstandings It's not just about technical depth or building out your technical portfolio. Practice stuff that helps with working well with others. As an engineer, this is the stuff that will help you get things unstuck and move teams forward. You still gotta: - Observe how you affect others in meetings - Get feedback in code reviews and retros - Make sure you’re connecting and staying open to perspectives Have you found ways to improve your collaboration or communication that really changed the way you work with other engineers? Anything OUTSIDE of work that others can try?

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