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If you look at most of the negative images surrounding software developer stereotypes (antisocial, overly technical, condescending), many of the bad qualities stem from a lack of empathy. For those who have to deal with idiots, morons, and a-holes...
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Kent Sharkey wrote: many of the bad qualities stem from a lack of empathy.
Isn't that the very definition of "nerd" or "geek" and why many of those people become software developers? I know that's a stereotype, but still...
None the less, my one line reply to:
"How software engineers can better develop empathy"
is, they write an AI that shows empathy!
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These whiners should learn to deal with it. They're lucky to get any software at all! 
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Having worked in jobs other than software development - warehouse work shifting boxes as well as selling plastic rubbish in a shop - while there is certainly a certain population of software developers who could do with better communication skills, this is in no way confined to the world of software development.
Unfortunately it's an existential/human issue - power has a tendency to bring out the inner jerk in a lot of people.
By power I don't necessarily mean the power over other people in a management position, but the ability to have an influence on a number of people.
“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”
― Christopher Hitchens
modified 4-Jun-20 2:30am.
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I suppose he hasn't work as waiter in a bar or as seller in a retailer.
If you think software developers can lack empathy, you should see what a collection of morons, idiots, jerks, a-holes and more you might have as customers...
M.D.V. 
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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It's one of the things I have seen with many of the younger developers.
They were born into a world with the internet and they may have never worked in any other job than a development role.
[disclaimer - this is a generalisation and I know of young developers who have worked in other roles]
“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”
― Christopher Hitchens
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Personally, I think that users are idiots because we developers enable that behavior (either by negligence, or by edict) by poorly thought-out UIs.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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Windows 10 includes two disk cleanup features that allow users to free up storage space used by unnecessary system and temporary files. Microsoft is making changes to these features to prevent Windows users from deleting files in the Downloads folder by accident. You asked for a cleaning, you got a cleaning...
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Kent Sharkey wrote: Microsoft is making changes to these features to prevent Windows users from deleting files in the Downloads folder by accident.
Users... by accident? Or by the system due to another crappy implementation or buggy functionality super expected feature?
M.D.V.
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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A team of computer graduate students reports that a closer examination of several dozen information retrieval algorithms hailed as milestones in artificial research were in fact nowhere near as revolutionary as claimed. I may have posted this one before, but it's so shocking, I had to post it again
I mean: whodathunkit?
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You know how "scientists" are - you can never be absolutely sure until you've seen how bad they all are.
TTFN - Kent
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“And because scientists are first and foremost human beings, they’re loathe to change their theories or their minds because of mere data.”
-- Glenn Hodges, writing on the geology of the Northwest
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David O'Neil wrote: “And because scientists are first and foremost human beings, they’re loathe to change their theories or their minds because of mere data.”
That might have been correct back then, but I think today...
David O'Neil wrote: “And because scientists are first and foremost human beings, they’re loathe to change their theories or their minds because of mere data funds.”
would be a bit more accurated
Sadly 
M.D.V.
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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Organisations in the UK and the US know they should improve their software testing practices. Sorry to be the one to break this news to you
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Kent Sharkey wrote: Organisations in the UK and the US know they should improve their software testing practices but don't give a crap because it brings less $$$.
FTFY
M.D.V.
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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Several months ago, I had an interview with a medical device company. Toward the end, I asked about testing, including unit testing. The hiring manager gave the "our software is too complicated and has too many hardware dependencies for that." I said that by breaking the software into layers they could get around that problem. The interview abruptly ended.
(It's sometimes funny to ask an obvious question in an interview and have the interviewer panic. A slight variation is having the interviewer ask a question and you realize that they want wasn't approved and budgeted by management. On the other hand, nicer to find that out before you get hired and then laid off.)
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Oh yes, you definitely dodged a bullet that time. 
TTFN - Kent
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Joe Woodbury wrote: Several months ago, I had an interview with a medical device company. Toward the end, I asked about testing, including unit testing. The hiring manager gave the "our software is too complicated and has too many hardware dependencies for that." I said that by breaking the software into layers they could get around that problem. The interview abruptly ended.
Great story.  Congrats on the artful dodge. 
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That's what the customer is for.
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I don't think it's as much not testing thoroughly enough as it is that the Windows ecosystem is a huge morphing environment. There are MILLIONS of hardware and software combinations, and weird interactions between those components are statistically likely to happen. And that's before you add "idiot users" to the mix.
It's impossible to release any software (of significance and established utility) that won't have any bugs.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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That is an essential part of why Apple products generally have been more stable: Apple has been extremely reluctant to letting others develop stuff for them (mostly hardware, but they are also restrictive about software). So they control the permutations, and can check them all. Or at least a much greater fraction.
You can see the same in software environments as well: If you restrict the group of users, or even of developers, to a small subset, you will have a much more static set of cases that must be handled (or tested). First time I entred a *nix develop environment, expecting things to work roughly the way I was used to, I crashed these super-stable Solaris workstations and the super-stable emacs editor several times a day. The seasoned Solaris developers where always surprised that anyone would as much as think of doing it that way! If I could only learn to do things the right way, I would be seeing how super-stable Solaris and emacs are .
Similarly: If you put a *nix DevOps guy in charge of a non-*nix system, he will most likely crash it several times a day, and complain about how much more stable *nix is. Many years ago, I took over a set of terribly misconfigured (to resemble *nix) and unstable machines. I was familiar with the native way of running this OS, and within a couple of weeks, the machines went from having daily crashes to running for months without any hickups.
Windows has opened up for everybody to have it their own way - even *nix guys can insist on not learning anything new when working with Windows: They can mess up the machines to look like the ones they already know. Supporting this mess of course costs MS truckloads of money.
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Safe Meeting keeps an eye on you during your video conferences, and if it sees business-inappropriate attire, the video is immediately muted. Odd times call for odd solutions (to modern problems)
Plus: AI!
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I honestly misread that "business-appropriate attire" and thought, "my kind of software."
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What if the meeting is a bunch of people associated with the adult film industry, and they're conducting an interview?
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
-----
You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
-----
When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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