Among many other topics I think this is one is one of the most important topics for the end of 2025. Entire IT sector being concerned about AI misuse on both side: professionals and companies and highlights the problem even more. The problem of engineers believes code must be self-documented. Even when it is much more than code. But let’s start from the beginning.
In my childhood, around 30 years ago first legends about talented programmers started to circle. A talented guy, made an application, sold it succesfuly and earned a lot. And started a business. And is now a giant in IT world. For some reason, no matter where modern software engineers are they still believe there is a place for such type of stories. Where well-done project grants access to the next level. The problem is - guards are other people who barely can understand the beauty of the solution. Therefore - do not care. Until it becomes understandable for them.
At this moment problem starts. It’s always been present in IT world. And hiring or promotion is just one of the many aspects. It’s been always a challenge to match engineers with the business. Both having own goals, almost like living on a different plants and caring about different problems. Despite the differences both can’t survive without each other.
The problem is deepened with the lack of proper preparations, education or examples. If engineers are lucky enough and involved in a business they might observe how business actually works. Connect dots how product they build is sold and how marketing is done for their own ideas. But that’s luck and will, that happens rarely. And sometimes it leads to an opposite solutions. Engineers are hating promotion and sales. I’ve been there a couple of years ago and I have a draft article on this, that I decided to rework into something more meaningful. But all that toxic traits that we might observe in various areas of life when someone tries to sell us something - is deepening the gap between us, engineers and the sales practices. And self promotion is close to the sales. Both has so much in common and often these expectation mixes up. And make it even worth.
Engineers are trained for building logic, the more complex and accurate it is - the better are the outcomes. In real life dealing with people this approach works till some point. And sometimes it does not work at all. We, people, are rather connecting on emotions and experience - not logic. And from pure logic self-promotion is often perceived as an egoistic act of telling about myself. While in reality promotion, including self-promotion, might be more about the prospect. When you can explicitly name and explain how you can help - it may become a day saver for someone. And logic says: “if they need developer they could find one in the Internet”. It’s logical, but far, far from the reality.
A personal note at the end: my perspective on this changed drastically when I made progress with saying “no” to myself. It was a path full of discoveries. “No” is not bad, it’s not a problem and it doesn’t mean someone’s mean. There is nothing wrong to say it or hear it. It means one thing - you are making a choice. And when we self-promote we may explicitly or implicitly offer our help. And it is possible for everybody to say “no”. Don’t be mean and don’t decide instead of them. You’ve build that cool app that’s gather virtual dust on private GitHub’s repo? Share your story if you’re too shy to share the code!