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Engineers Aren’t Bad at Communication. They’re Just Speaking to the Wrong Audience.
There’s a persistent myth that engineers are bad communicators. In my experience, that’s not true.
Engineers are often excellent communicators—inside their domain. We’re precise. We’re logical. We structure arguments clearly. We define terms. We reason from constraints.
The breakdown happens when the audience changes.
We’re used to speaking in highly technical language, surrounded by people who share our vocabulary. In that environment, shorthand and jargon are efficient. But outside that bubble, when talking to executives, product managers, marketing teams, or customers, that same precision can be confusing.
The problem isn’t that we can’t communicate. It’s that we forget to translate.
If you’ve ever explained a critical issue or error to a non-technical stakeholder, you’ve probably experienced this: You give a technically accurate explanation. They leave either more confused than before, or more alarmed than necessary.
Suddenly you’re spending more time clarifying your explanation than fixing the issue.
Under pressure, we default to what we know best—technical detail. But detail without context creates cognitive overload. The listener can’t tell what matters, what’s normal, and what’s dangerous.
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