The short answer is yes, you do need communication and people skills...or rather it helps to have them.
If, for example, you are working in a hangar on base checks, you need to communicate with the guys you are working with, "management" from time to time, "planners"....when forced to!...tech services and customer reps if you are working on third party aircraft.
On the line, it's different again. You are meeting a range of people from different backgrounds and occupations....aircrew, CC, operations, caterers, fuelers, Plod / Customs / Immigration, dispatchers. cleaners.....all of whom have the usual flaws and virtues of human beings.
That said, as Turin comments, you will also encounter a significant number of self important f$%kwits who feel thus because they are "involved with aviation"...most of whom qualify for the title of oxygen thief simply by being born....I can
more than empathise therefore with his and the rectum / anus comparison afforded to experiences with such individuals.
You will also encounter the unwritten heirachy in which everybody perceives themselves to be more essential and important than a "mere" engineer....thus there are times when you will need to be, ahem, "assertive"....which invariably means denting a few ego's.
You may enjoy this aspect of the job
