i think now more than ever, there needs to be a bridge mindset between technical and non-technical. i learned that very early on, and even spent some time in a customer-facing, non-technical role to hone my bridge mindset. the ability to have empathy for the end user, and everyone else upstream who will touch your logic, is paramount and takes care of a lot of issues.

it's up to us as technical professionals to care about both the "what" and the "how". the ability to pan in and out on a particular need was learned early on and i cannot be more thankful of that.