It's really the humanity of the books that gets me. Division by Zero is one of his pieces that I find myself thinking about all the time for that very reason. It just captures this somberness about how relationships can grow and change and sometimes end.

I do now have a Ted Chiang shaped hole in my life after finishing his collections. I just haven't found another author that really gets into the heart of what sci-fi can be.

Try Greg Egan's Axiomatic. I picked it up from a free books charity knowing nothing about it, and found the author to be a little "harder" than Chiang but with the same focus on the humanity to be found in sci-fi.

For a taste, make sure to check out Closer, available here: http://eidolon.net/?story=Closer

Michael Crichton is very good too, and of course Ray Bradbury.

You could try reading something from Jorge Luis Borges. It may not be as sci-fi-y, generally more in the atmosphere of "Tower of Babylon", but great in its treatment of human nature and its relationship with universe.

seconding, i found borges through a recommendation after reading chiang and he (borges) became my favorite author

Some of Ken Liu's stories in The Paper Menagerie filled that gap for me. They are fabulous in their own right, though, maybe a lot more "dream"-like.

Links to Amazon pages? I almost exclusively follow software engineering books since 2012 when I started my career as SWE. Had little knowledge in outside areas...

Agreed, they are both really enjoyable reads with some very clever, thought provoking stories. Highly recommended.