I think there is knowledge to be had in the confusion itself, given this was asked on HN.<p>Read a HN comment section, versus a Reddit comment or YouTube comment section, and take some notes on the difference in communicative styles.<p>The latter are what people on average like to be around: it's got political stuff and the like, sure, but most comments that rise to the top are jokes and generally uplifting comments.<p>A HN comment section is more like a series of bitter black-white 0-100 swings on who is right or not about something. Relatively, it's scathing and stammering. Sometimes it feels like the author had their fists clenched and was stomping their feet on the ground as they wrote it.<p>"Normal" people just really don't like that way of communicating. It's not pleasant, and they don't want to be around it.<p>But that's how tech people tend to be, relatively speaking, especially at senior levels. Much like the computers they work with: empathy only if you're 100% right, otherwise a surly rebuke.<p>Also it's a fairly open secret that this profession has a lot of people "on the spectrum", which is jarring for others who are not used to interacting with such people.<p>The solution lies in putting in solid work so develop understanding of each other. And it only takes reading a few books.<p>The two groups are necessarily different. Many manager types would go nuts dealing with the daily inanity of machines breaking in new and creative ways. Many engineer types would hate having to deal with directly with customers, investors, marketers, sales reps and all that "people stuff". They need each other and "othering" each other doesn't achieve anything in the long run.<p>The managers need to do more to understand the daily experience of the engineer and what they value or dislike and why, and engineers need to zoom out and try to understand or at least mimic the perspective and social needs of managers.<p>Everybody's busy and no one wants to do this, but they just have to. They can at least start with recognizing each other's experiences. A manager saying "we need to pay down technical debt so we can speed up future development", or "we won't add more devs to the project because it will slow it down" will go a long way towards respect. That's "empathy" to an engineer.<p>Likewise, an engineer will do well to say things like "this task will improve lifetime customer value" or "reduce churn" or even hold your nose and say "synergise" if you have to, and hold your tongue on the technical matters. And above all else: ask questions! Actually try to understand their needs, so you can find new ways to meet in the middle. That's empathy for a manager.