A Guide to Public Speaking for Software Engineers

“Your technical skills are where they need to be, but you need to improve your communication.” - Your manager. This is one of the hardest pieces of feedback to hear as a software engineer. Why? Because you probably thought as a software engineer you can just speak code. But no. Only focusing on code can lead to a ceiling in your potential for growth and promotions. While there’s a lot to communication, this post is focused on public speaking. Specifically, we’ll cover: The most important areas to fix in your body language, wording, and tonality. How to create a presentation structure that keeps people listening to you. The concepts here can be applied to: In-person & remote tech talks, demos, and technical direction presentations Leading meetings Interviews ⚠ Disclaimer: My advice is based on what has worked for me, but there are certainly exceptions. It will not apply to 100% of situations. If you only take one thing from this section: Be open with your body language. There are 3 patt

“Your technical skills are where they need to be, but you need to improve your communication.” - Your manager. This is one of the hardest pieces of feedback to hear as a software engineer. Why? Because you probably thought as a software engineer you can just speak code. But no. Only focusing on code can lead to a ceiling in your potential for growth and promotions. While there’s a lot to communication, this post is focused on public speaking. Specifically, we’ll cover: The most important areas to fix in your body language, wording, and tonality. How to create a presentation structure that keep