Bad Writing Is Sabotaging Tech
The industry’s inability to write is sabotaging productivity. Poorly written tickets waste time. Confusing documentation leads to bugs. Lack of clarity creates friction between teams.
And yet, no one seems to care. Companies test your ability to reverse a binary tree but don’t check if you can write a coherent email. This mindset is ridiculous. Writing isn’t just a nice-to-have—it’s essential to delivering quality work. If you’re bad at writing, you’re bad at your job.
The Real Cost of Poor Writing
How often have you opened a ticket to find nothing but vague, half-thought-out descriptions? Or worse, no description at all? This isn’t just lazy—it’s costly. It slows down development, frustrates teammates, and turns collaboration into a guessing game.
I’ve seen senior devs write cryptic notes assuming everyone else can magically read their minds. I’ve seen documentation so convoluted that it’s easier to start from scratch than try to decode it. And yet, we keep pretending writing doesn’t matter as long as the code runs. Spoiler alert: it matters.
Fixing the Problem
This isn’t rocket science. If we want better collaboration and less wasted time, we need to take writing seriously. Here’s what I think needs to change:
Teach Writing Skills: There’s no excuse. Google has free tech writing courses—use them. Writing clear, concise tickets is a skill everyone can and should learn.
Set Standards: Every team needs a clear process for how tickets and documentation should be written. Stop leaving it up to chance.
Shift the Culture: Writing isn’t a “soft skill.” It’s what makes teams functional. Stop treating it like it’s optional.
Writing is not a “nice-to-have” in tech; it’s a core skill. Good communication is a force multiplier—it saves time, reduces mistakes, and keeps everyone on the same page. If we continue to ignore it, we’re just setting ourselves up for more inefficiencies and headaches.
We spend so much energy optimizing code and systems, but how about optimizing how we share ideas? Writing clearly is easier than fixing the chaos that bad writing creates. It’s time we gave this skill the respect it deserves.