How Public Speaking Accelerates Your Engineering Career

The skill that puts your technical expertise in the spotlight

Today, we have a special guest post by Fran Soto, Software Engineer at Amazon. He writes at Strategize Your Career, where he shares actionable career tips weekly. Be sure to check out his newsletter.

Fran recently shared that he had been learning and mastering the art of presenting – a skill that many engineers shy away from. I’ve invited him here today to share more about his challenges, journey and lessons learned while public speaking to an audience of over 1000 engineers.

I’ll let Fran take over from here.

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I recently gave a technical talk at an external event.

Public speaking doesn’t usually make me nervous, but preparing for the talk was a different story. The time investment and the pressure to deliver weighed on me. What if I wasn’t ready?

Despite the nerves, the experience left me fulfilled. Doing something outside my usual routine – something most people shy away from felt rewarding. It wasn’t just about the talk but about stepping into a spotlight I didn’t realize I needed.

You might think nerves are a sign of fear, but I see them as proof that your actions matter.

This talk boosted my confidence and made my skills visible to leaders who might have otherwise overlooked them.

We often assume our work will speak for itself, but that’s rarely true. Communication and visibility are just as essential to career growth as technical ability.

Public speaking isn’t just about standing on a stage. It’s about building confidence and shaping your personal brand—a brand that sets you apart as an engineer. Let me show you how.

⭐ In this post, you’ll learn

• How public speaking accelerates your career

• The importance of preparation and practical tips

• Lessons learned from overcoming challenges during live presentation

• How to make the most out of these speaking events

🚀 Why public speaking matters for career growth

Let me share with you a story. There’s a director of engineering whom

1. I don’t report to,

2. I am not in the same location in

3. I don’t work directly with any of his teams in my day-to-day.

Despite that, this director knows perfectly who I am after participating and speaking in multiple events.

Public speaking opportunities are a free ticket to being seen by your company's leaders. They don’t have the time to dive into our pull requests or read through commit messages.

However, a well-delivered talk can showcase your technical insights and grab attention, positioning you as someone worth listening to.

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📚 Preparation: The real work behind a talk

Preparing for a talk was how I learned the most about public speaking.

As two engineers presenting about migrating services and databases without downtime, we started with internal sessions to develop the content and followed up with dry-run presentations for internal feedback. This worked out well.

On one dry run, I skipped prep entirely… a big mistake! I forgot the key points I had added just two weeks earlier. Another time, I spoke too fast, tripped over words, and rushed through the delivery. Everyone gave me the same feedback: Slow down.

Things improved when I worked backward from the event date, setting clear milestones: slide creation, rehearsals, and feedback loops with my speaking partner. By the end, we had a polished talk, a solid structure, and the confidence to nail it.

That’s how I learned that preparation builds confidence. Most of us do not speak for a living, so we must learn how to build confidence.

Lastly, you won’t improve in preparation without feedback. Record yourself speaking, do dry runs where people can give you feedback, and have a recording or pictures of the presentation to improve for future ones.

The smaller the feedback loop, the better. Some ideas sound great, but when you realize nobody is getting it, it’s time to drop it. You want to get the presentation out of your head and deliver it to people fast and frequently.

Here’s what I do in order to prepare for public speeches:

• Work backward from the event date.

• Arrange multiple dry runs where people can give you feedback.

• Prepare before every dry run and iterate on the feedback.

🔍 Challenges that dry runs didn’t teach me

Despite all my preparation, the actual event was a different experience. Dry runs couldn’t simulate the pressure of a live audience.

Surprisingly, this benefited me. I spoke slower, had more confidence, and engaged better with the audience than in dry runs.

Here’s what I learned:

• Pacing matters. I had to fight the urge to rush and use pauses to emphasize key points.

• Nerves are normal. I often felt nervous right before I stepped on stage. However, I mitigated this by chatting with attendees beforehand.

• Talk to people, not to the wall: Identify members of the audience facing you and interpret their body language. Speak to them. Don’t speak to the wall at the back of the room.

• Pre-define your posture and movements. Depending on the stage, you may be able to move or stay static. Define an open-body pose ahead of time that you can maintain for the entire talk. If you move, define the movements to avoid seeming nervous when moving too fast.

I had to stay static on one side of the big screen in this room.

While not the most open posture, I decided to grab my arm as a default posture always to have a “safe posture” I can return to when I’m not speaking and making any precise gestures.

These minor adjustments helped improve my body language and equipped me for future presentations. Having a default posture is better than fidgeting when you don’t know what to do.

Another great trick I learned is to have something in your hands. This can be a presentation pointer, deck, or just clasping your hands. Something I could have used better was the chair next to me. With it, I could have adopted a more open posture!

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🌱 Long-lasting benefits

The value of these events isn’t just about the talk but about the conversations that followed.

I spent some time connecting with attendees, and there, I realized how interesting it is to have people with 10+ years of experience and new grads looking for their first opportunity in the same conversation.

I connected a friend with an Amazon Director of Engineering and a Hiring Manager to help him explore the possibility of joining Amazon. Later, I chatted with a new grad and remembered how lost I felt at that stage, wishing I’d had someone experienced to ask questions and get guidance from.

Looking back at my journey, I wish I had connected with people working at Big Tech while finishing my studies. Even if I didn’t have this chance because of Covid, I can give it to people graduating now!

After you finish your talk, you have done the hard work. Now, the benefits and most of the fun starts!

🎯 Conclusion

Public speaking is a career accelerator.

It boosts your visibility, builds confidence, and expands your network. It creates collaboration opportunities in ways that coding alone can’t.

However, it requires preparation, practice, and a willingness to embrace discomfort.

The next time you’re invited to speak, don’t hesitate. Although the experience seems daunting, the results are worth it.

I hope you enjoyed this article, and I’m waiting for you in Strategize Your Career to make career growth more productive.