Why communication is important as a Software Engineer

It’s funny that I’m the one writing this?—?because if you’d asked me a few years ago, I would’ve said communication wasn’t exactly my strong suit. As an introvert (and, let’s be honest, still one at heart), talking to people or asking for help wasn’t my cuppa tea. My logic was simple: if I could figure everything out on my own, I’d be fine.

That worked… until it didn’t. Because when you’re building complex software, there’s only so much you can do solo?—?especially when debugging a codebase older than your entire professional experience. At some point, you have to talk to people, whether it’s deciphering cryptic documentation, collaborating with teammates, or just getting a second pair of eyes on a stubborn bug that refuses to make sense.

Although communication is important in any field, I’m not a soldier or an aircraft pilot?—?I’m just a developer. So, let me tell you how good communication can make your life easier, help your team collaborate better, and ultimately improve the awesome product you’re building right now.

1. Seeking Help & Asking Questions

Want the fastest way to complete your assigned tasks? Simple?—?go back to the assigner and the people involved in the ticket to get the requirements straight. More often than not, the person assigning the ticket and the one who originally created it aren’t on the same page. Get the right people to clarify the details and avoid hours of guesswork.

By doing this, you will:

1. Gain a clearer understanding of the problem.
2. See how different team members interpret the issue.
3. Help your team develop a deeper understanding of the problem.

At the end of this process, you’ll have all the necessary information (seriously, take notes). This knowledge would have taken hours to piece together on your own. From here, all that’s left is to:

• Brainstorm possible solutions.
• Rank them based on complexity and implementation time.
• Choose the most effective one and get to work.

A few minutes of conversation can save you hours of debugging. Talk first, code later!

2. Stakeholder Communication

I’m sure you’ve been in this situation before?—?either you or someone else estimated a task, but once you started working on it, you realized it would take much longer than expected. While this is a normal part of software development, it can cause serious issues:

• Missed releases: Many tasks are dependencies for others, so when one gets delayed, multiple pieces of work might need to be excluded from the release.
• Loss of trust: Stakeholders lose confidence in the team, and clients may start doubting the organization’s reliability.
• Snowball effect: Frequent delays cause critical tasks to pile up, making future development slower and more frustrating.

Managing this isn’t easy, but there are a couple of things you can do to make everyone’s life easier:

1. Spot early warning signs: As you begin the task, identify potential roadblocks. Since you’ve already discussed the approach with your team (you did that, right?), this should be easier to assess.
2. Communicate with stakeholders: They may not fully understand the technical issues, but keeping them informed about roadblocks helps them set expectations and communicate with others.

This won’t magically solve the problem, but it does something just as important?—?it maintains trust and ensures we plan the next release cycle with these challenges in mind. In the long run, that’s what keeps everything running smoothly.

3. Mentoring & Knowledge Sharing

If you’re passionate about building solutions, chances are you know a lot. So why not share that knowledge with others? Keeping your team up to date with the latest technologies and best practices benefits everyone. After all, a team full of experts is something no one would turn down.

But knowledge sharing isn’t just for others?—?it helps you too. Teaching reinforces your own understanding and exposes gaps you didn’t even know existed.

I used to think I had a solid grasp of asynchronous programming. I was confident?—?until I reviewed a PR where a method was marked async, yet all it did was calculate the adjusted gross income of a partner. No database calls, no file reads—just a bunch of conditions and arithmetic operations.

That made me pause. I asked the developer about it, and while they provided an explanation, it wasn’t convincing. Since they were a junior dev, I wanted to make sure they truly understood async programming. But as the conversation went on, I realized something?—?I couldn’t confidently prove them wrong either.

At that moment, I saw the flaw in my own understanding. I could have dismissed their approach, but my knowledge was too fragile to give a conclusive answer. That pushed me to go back, dig deeper, and truly understand async programming. And as it turned out, my previous knowledge was shallow?—?I had never thought deeply enough to reason about it in discussions.

Sharing knowledge isn’t just about helping others?—?it’s how we grow, challenge our assumptions, and become better engineers.

Another perk? When you share knowledge, you encourage others to do the same. I’ve had peers come to me, excited to talk about things they’re passionate about?—?things I would never have learned on my own, no matter how much I searched for them.

This creates a culture of continuous learning, where everyone grows together and stays humble in their craft.

Feeling of silliness

Sometimes, you might hesitate to ask a question because it feels silly. But here’s the truth?—?asking a so-called “silly” question won’t make you look dumb. No one is going to fire you for asking one, but they might if you make a costly mistake that could have been avoided by simply asking.

No question is truly silly?—?every question deserves an answer. So just ask.

At the end of the day, communication is what makes great engineers, great teams, and great products. Whether it’s clarifying requirements, sharing knowledge, or just asking for help, speaking up makes all the difference. So keep the conversations going, stay curious, and remember?—?talk first, code later!

Stay Curious. Adios ??

This article was originally written on Medium.