[angryGhost]

Technical skills are teachable to a coachable person, soft skills not so much

[munchbunny]

Soft skills are also teachable to a coachable person. I've seen it in action. However, far fewer people are receptive to coaching on soft skills because fewer people understand what "soft skills" are and why they matter.

I've met plenty of engineers (anecdotally, not a majority, but enough that it's a clear pattern, and strongly correlated with how junior they are) who lump soft skills into a single category represented by broad labels like "charisma" or "schmoozing" or "eloquence". But it's really a very big category of practicable skills.

[ZephyrBlu]

I think "soft skills" disguises what these skills generally are and their importance in the context of an organization.

Things like navigating an org, knowing how to make asks that have a high % of being accepted, writing things for a specific audience and keeping conversations on track are all very important "soft skills" that are completely hidden by the "soft skills" label.

[randomdata]

Understanding why soft skills matter is teachable to a coachable person. But not without a coach and when it comes to soft skills there is a general reluctance towards providing soft skill coaching, with a prevailing attitude, as seen in the first comment, that anyone who "wasn't born" with soft skills is unteachable, leaving few willing to try to be the coach.

[13of40]

I'd go a step further and say that there will be times when you can sit across the table from a grown adult and explain to them the behind the scenes details of the performance review process, explain that you want them to do X Y and Z so you can build a case to get them promoted this year, just to have them tell you to fuck off because X isn't coding, Y is boring, and Z is below their skill level. "But please still promo me ASAP."

[HellDunkel]

Technical skills are not really teachable much unless its a full time job.

[icedchai]

Some people don't have the aptitude (for either.)