I feel like we let new engineers down by not guiding them toward resources where they can improve their social/writing skills.

Where is the brilliant.org for social/emotional/communication skills?

Social skills are presented as an obvious thing and the lack thereof is grounds for ridicule and derision rather than pointers to resources. (Note: How to win Friends and Influence people is a good base, but the Harvard Negotiation Project has many more good books. Also, Charisma on Command is a great youtube resource)

We have them be taught writing by literature majors who insist there’s some meaning to blue curtains but can’t be bothered to explain why or what the principles behind making that judgement are. (Note: a great explanation of how symbolism works can be found by putting “extra credits symbolism” into google)

I think it's important to separate the skills out. Communication, social, and writing skills are three different things, and it's quite possible to learn all three without a literature class. You can thank the middle school and high school curricula for the unfortunate association.

Once you're in college, you can get the writing without the symbolism by taking writing classes, especially creative writing ones. But I amost never saw engineers do it, often out of a "what am I going to do with it? Write short stories for my documentation?" reaction. Their loss.

After college, there are plenty of books and classes you can take, but like programming it often comes down to practicing and getting feedback. There are websites and your local area likely has writer circles. You can get into short story writing and you'll get good feedback from others. Unlike programming, writing is an inherently social activity. In order for your writing to work, it must pass through the lens of another human.