Uno - ESP32 SoftwareSerial communication won't work
On the ESP32 you would never use SoftwareSerial except under exceptional circumstances.
The ESP32 has three hardware UARTs that can be mapped to any pin combination on the board.
The general usage is:
HardwareSerial Serial2(1); // Use UART channel 1

void setup() {
    Serial2.begin(9600, SERIAL_8N1, RXD2, TXD2);
}

UARTs are numbered 0-2 where 0 is pre-assigned to the TX/RX (USB connection) pins and is used for debugging and programming.  UARTs 1 and 2 are not normally assigned to anywhere and you can use them as you see fit.