Code is 20% of the Job Most programmers spend about 20% of their time writing code. The other 80% is something else entirely: Clarifying requirements in planning meetings Explaining technical decisions to stakeholders Negotiating scope and trade-offs with product managers Giving feedback to colleagues This is not a soft-skills pitch. This is about the conversations that actually determine whether your code ships, whether your features work, and whether your career advances. AI can write code. It cannot negotiate a deadline. Conversation 1: Requirements Clarification The most expensive bug I've ever encountered wasn't a logic error. It was a feature that did exactly what the ticket said, but not what the stakeholder actually needed. It took three weeks to build, two more weeks to realize the mistake, and another week to fix. The root cause was a requirements conversation that nobody had. Requirements clarification is a skill.…