If you want to become a successful developer, you have to learn more than writing code to become successful.
In this article, we’ll look at some soft skills to learn in order to become a successful developer. Like any job, soft skills are also pretty important given that we can do the technical work.
Being Approachable
Being approachable is very important since most developers work in a team.
It means that we’re ready and willing to help people if the need arises.
When someone asks us something, we should be available for help if we can.
It just makes us more useful in the team, which contributes to our continued success in any environment.
Patience
In software development, we run into problems all the time. We just have to be patient in any way we can.
We should listen to there people patiently and be open-minded.
Also, we should be helpful to other people and explain things to non-technical things in simple ways that they can understand.
We should also be patient without teammates and be aware that they’re probably pretty busy and don’t always have to fulfill our requests.
Open-Mindedness
We should be open-minded about feedback and take them so we can adapt to them. This way, people will like us since they won’t be frustrated with us by being stubborn.
Also, constructive feedback is also important if we create our own product to sell since we want people to buy our stuff.
Therefore, we should listen to customers and clients that give us money and so we should take any reasonable feedback from the seriously.
Problem Solving
The core of software development is problem-solving. We’re just solving problems with software and programming instead of using other methods.
This means that we should get good at problem-solving so that we can be useful to people like teammates, customers, and clients.
To solve problems we have to step into the shoes of people that have the problem at hand. We have to know what they want.
Also, we have to dig deep and find the root cause of the problem before solving it. It doesn’t help us much to just try random things and hope that something sticks.
As developers, we have to solve problems with logic and reason.
We also have to learn to work with other people within and outside our teams to solve problems together. This may include things like pair programming.
Creativity
We have to be creative when solving problems. If we’re fixated on one thing when we’re solving problems, then we may never find the right solution since the solution is probably outside of what we’re thinking.
We should try different ways to solve problems until we find the best way to do it. Creativity can also come from other people’s suggestions rather than what comes out of our own brain.
Reading other people’s stuff and trying different things helps us get creative.
Accountability
Accountability is all about taking ownership of everything good and bad. We have to admit to mistakes and fix them.
Also, we have to deliver results and update people at least once in a while so that others know what we’re doing to avoid any duplicate work.
Time Management
Time management is important if we want to deliver things on a schedule, which is probably most developers’ jobs are in essence.
We can use things like kanban boards to keep things organized and keep track of their status. It’s a good way to visualize tasks and keep everything readable so we know what we’re ahead or behind on.
This is important since most of us probably have a lot to do so having something to keep us on track is important.
Also, we should divide our work in a way so that they can get done easily. This means dividing projects into small, manageable pieces instead of trying to attack everything at the same time.
Conclusion
We should manage our time by dividing our tasks into small pieces and track them.
Also, we should be open-minded and creative so that we can solve our problems faster by not fixating on the way we solve problems.
Being approachable for help is also important since teammates should help each other.
Finally, being patient when dealing with clients, teammates and other stakeholders is also important.
