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DS Dave Smith Dave Smith Software developer who co-hosts Soft Skills Engineering, a weekly advice show for software engineers.

“Throughout my career, the things that fall into the category of things I shouldn't have to do are actually where I've found the most success. And I think it's because most people won't do things they shouldn't have to do. They'll look at it and be like, I shouldn't have to do that. And then they don't. And then they don't get the benefits.”

Soft Skills Engineering · Hands-On Engineering Podcasts · October 2026

“Throughout my career, the things that fall into the category of things I shouldn't have to do are actually where I've found the most success. And I think it's because most people won't do things they shouldn't have to do. They'll look at it and be like, I shouldn't have to do that. And then they don't. And then they don't get the benefits.” — Dave Smith, Soft Skills Engineering

Dave Smith advising a listener whose manager keeps creating messes for the team. Some people won't change however well you deliver the message, he said, and working around them has produced some of his biggest professional wins.

Soft Skills Engineering · 2026-10-19 Listen to the episode → More from Dave Smith → More Hands-On Engineering Podcasts quotes →

Transcript

Soft Skills Engineering Around 15:02 into the episode
Dave Smith

…do that. I was like, well, I guess that's the end of this. Like, what am I supposed to do with that? You know, like, and so then you go into workaround mode, I think, where it's like, okay, how do I, how do I kind of like attenuate the pain canon that's being aimed at me so that it doesn't hurt as

Jamison Dance

much? And you put on your padding or whatever. Yeah,

Dave Smith

exactly. And I'll tell you what, though, there can be great success in that as well. Some people will not be able to hear you no matter how good you are at delivering these, you know, these kinds of or executing on these kinds of. Conversations. And I have found that working around people's particular mode of work or mode of being at work has produced some of the most fruitful success in my professional career. And it falls in this category of things that someone once told me is a category called things I shouldn't have to do. Throughout my career, the things that fall into the category of things I shouldn't have to do are actually where I've found the most success. And I think it's because most people won't do things they shouldn't have to do. They'll look at it and be like, I shouldn't have to do that. And then they don't. And then they don't get the benefits. So I won't share any examples of this right now because I don't want to incriminate. I don't want to like, what's the word? I want to protect the innocent and the guilty.

Jamison Dance

Yeah.

Dave Smith

But I've definitely done things in my career that most people would say, you shouldn't have to do that. And they've been the best thing I've ever done.

Jamison Dance

Yeah.

Speaker names from our own diarization · position estimated from where the line sits in the episode

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