7 Soft Skills You Need To Be A Successful Software Developer

You have the full knowledge of understanding the brief of your clients and creating a perfect code solution. You also have a robust QA strategy settled that ensures that your software always functions correctly the first time. However, these are the hard skills that are necessary to be a software developer and many of them have these. But do you have the soft skills that are likely to take you from being just a good software developer to being a great one? No matter if you are an experienced software engineer or a fresher for the industry, there always exists something that you can do to level up your game. When you have all kinds of skills, whether it is software engineering skills or soft skills, only then you will be called a well-rounded developer.

Soft skills and their benefits

Soft skills are related to you as a person and to the people who are around you. They are a wide range of attributes that can give real advantages to you, your employer, and your colleagues. But…as a software developer, testing and coding are technical skills and those must be more important for you than soft skills, right? The answer is a big ‘NO’. Soft skills, sometimes, are even called the ‘core skills'. This is enough to prove the vitality of these skills. A study done in 2020 reveals that 97% of employers rate soft skills as being equally important to, or more important than hard/ tech skills.

Research conducted by Harvard University, the Carnegie Foundation, and Stanford Research Center, concludes that 85% of job success comes from having well-developed soft skills and people skills. No denying that performing well on your job will definitely give you benefits, whether it is creating a new code, or modifying software, or implementing a SaaS SEO project, or something else; but improving your soft skills also can help you a lot. These skills will help you to stand out from the crowd, get noticed by your management, come along better with colleagues, and achieve a more harmonious work-life balance.

7 soft skills you need to achieve career growth

1. Excellent communication skills

Everyone knows talking, but not everyone knows effective communication or has interpersonal skills. Being a software developer implies understanding a whole new language, viz., the language of codes, along with all the acronyms and technical terms accompanying it. However, these terms may seem to be simple to you, but do all your colleagues understand them? For instance, would you be able to explain ‘agile software testing’ to a computing novice? Hence, considering the language skills you have and tailoring it according to your audience is a task to do when improving your communication skills. By sharpening your interpersonal skills, you are able to reach out to more people.

2. Listening skills

Listening skills go hand in hand with communication skills. To become a good communicator, you also need to become an active listener. You should always remember that everybody you work with and speak to, deserves an ear to be listened to as they may have some information that makes your job easier. You should put all the distractions to one side, and just concentrate on the person communicating with you.

Non-verbal communication is also a key here as it often reveals as much as what the speaker is saying. Experts in the field say that 93% of communication is non-verbal, and thus, one should pay attention to what other people are saying, even when they are silent.

3. Creative skills

In general, all software developers have the capability of being able to follow a brief. But what makes a developer a great developer is when he/she brings something new to the table with their creative spark and problem-solving skills. The skill of critical thinking and creativity is like a muscle, that is, the more you use it, the more powerful it becomes. Therefore, if one pursues creative activities such as writing, painting, playing music, etc. at home, it will enhance his/her creativity level when it comes to software development.

4. Teamwork skills

As a software developer, you know the importance of linking in your codes, and that of link building within web content. But it is equally important that you build links with your colleagues as well. Even if you are the head, building employee relationship is important. As you spend much of your day working with your project team, developing your skills to be able to work in a team makes a big difference in how harmonious, for you, your workplace is.

You might be used to working with your own initiative as a software person, but it doesn’t mean that you can then neglect the aspect of teamwork. Working in cohesion with your mates will help you achieve results in a better and quicker manner, and that will definitely be noticed by the top management.

5. Patience skills

Seeing your excellent code working is one of the great joys you get as a software developer. However, to get this joy is no 2-minutes job. So, it is essential for you to concentrate fully on the intermediate stages as well as on the end goal. This involves spending time checking your difficult programming code, stress testing, and carrying out functional test procedures. And all of this requires patience.

Showing patience is often like a test of endurance, but it is an important element of the quality control process. When you do not race ahead, it is highly likely that you will get it right the first time itself. This will save your employer’s time and money.

6. Relaxation skills

The software development sector is an increasingly competitive one and one is likely to come under pressure in order to deliver successful projects efficiently and effectively. While patience can help alleviate it, it is only up to a level. And knowing when and how to relax is just as important.

Mastering this art of relaxation isn’t easy for everyone, yet it brings many benefits to your work life as well as your personal life. This can be done by allocating some part of each day when you completely switch off from the external world. Guided meditation and yoga can also act as useful aids to relaxation.

7. Self-confidence

Creative people definitely have this great asset in their careers, but they still need to be able to showcase it to their project manager or employer. And that is what requires confidence. It doesn't come naturally to everyone but you can still help yourself in building confidence. It is one thing that links all successful people. They have confidence in their abilities and confidence over time has taught them to shut off their internal voices of doubt, which allows them to achieve their true potential.

One way in which you can achieve this is by knowing your job inside out, understanding the policies and procedures at your workplace, and knowing when to give your inputs and get noticed. In so many ways self-confidence is one of the most essential soft skills. It is a skill that you may carry throughout your life. 

Bonus!