LinkedIn’s VP of Engineering, Prashanthi Padmanabhan, asserts that technical expertise alone is no longer sufficient for software engineers; candidates must pair coding skills with strong soft skills and demonstrable personal projects to stand out in the competitive, AI-influenced job market.
For many recent graduates, finding a first full-time job can feel daunting, especially in a field like software engineering. Standing out from hundreds of applicants is particularly challenging as AI coding tools increasingly take on work that previously belonged to entry-level hires.
This concern is top of mind for Prashanthi Padmanabhan, LinkedIn’s VP of Engineering for talent solutions. She told Business Insider that in the current job market, “technical skills don’t cut it.” While technical expertise remains “core” to the job—and areas like LLM development and cloud applications are rising in importance—software engineers must demonstrate they can bring more to the table. Padmanabhan emphasized that highlighting soft skills and side projects is essential for candidates to distinguish themselves.
Padmanabhan said that soft skills are key to being an effective software engineer. “You need to learn how to collaborate with different people, like a product manager, a UX designer, a marketer, to take your idea from concept to completion,” she explained.
The executive pointed to LinkedIn’s “Skills on the Rise in Engineering” report, which ranks skills based on company hiring trends. While large language model development tops the list, the next three most sought-after skills are soft skills: people management, agile problem solving, and AI strategy.
“Equally important are your soft skills, like critical thinking, problem solving, collaboration, and teamwork,” Padmanabhan said. “Like, how do you really think about user experience?” As AI automates simpler tasks, entry-level candidates are increasingly expected to handle higher-level work, translating to more engineers focusing on building products rather than solely on code.
While coursework and certifications help showcase technical acumen, Padmanabhan said that applicants must go a step further to demonstrate they have actually applied those skills. Job seekers should have a project that shows applied learning from their coursework or certifications.
“When students are graduating, they’re not going to have a lot of on- the-job skills to show,” Padmanabhan said. “But what they can show us? How have they been up-skilling themselves?” Side projects significantly boost a candidate’s chances by proving they applied learnings from an academic degree, course, or certification program.
Padmanabhan advises: “If you don’t have the coding experience, but you have a brilliant idea in your head, just build something.” With AI tools handling more coding tasks, there is a growing expectation that anyone can build out an idea. Showing off a concept they brought to life is becoming a standard part of the interview process, and many students already maintain a GitHub repository of projects they have built.
The executive stressed that the process of building is crucial. She mentioned candidates who have sent her surveys based on 100 peer interviews to demonstrate the reasoning behind their product idea. She advises candidates to validate their hypothesis through research before starting to build, and then “continuously test and iterate.”
“Showing how you go about building actually matters a lot, because that’s what happens in the real world,” Padmanabhan concluded. “We do user research. You do user experience studies.” Once candidates have this experience, they can use the interview to share more color about their development journey.
