[DoreenMichele]

among the eight most important qualities of Google’s top employees, STEM expertise comes in dead last.

I have a lot of those soft skills. But no one is going to hire me as an engineer because I don't have the coding skills.

It comes in dead last because you have to have high level coding skills to get your foot in the door. Everyone has that. Getting ahead in that crowd means having others assets on top of being a good coder.

It is a little like saying "Height doesn't matter for success as a basketball player. As long as you are at least 6'6", what matters are these other attributes." Yeah, sure, cool. It isn't a strong differentiator for the in crowd because you can't even join the crowd without it.

[avprpl]

I agree. If everyone at some company meets some bar for expertise, then differentiation among peers comes elsewhere.