Essential Skills Every Developer Should Master (Besides Coding)

As a full-stack developer with over a decade of experience, I‘ve come to realize that coding skills alone are not enough to succeed and advance in this field. The most respected and impactful developers are those who can marry their technical expertise with a range of complementary "soft skills."

In fact, in Stack Overflow‘s 2019 Developer Survey of over 90,000 developers, 81% rated "problem solving skills" as a bigger factor in career success than "specific knowledge of a tech stack/tool" (37%) or "years of experience" (25%).¹

Here are the key skills I believe every developer needs to cultivate, beyond just coding chops:

1. Communication and Collaboration

Effective collaboration is the lifeblood of successful development teams. As a developer, you need to clearly articulate complex technical concepts to both fellow engineers and non-technical stakeholders. This requires strong communication skills and a high degree of emotional intelligence and empathy.

On any given day, you may need to:

• Whiteboard a proposed system architecture with your teammates
• Break down a new feature proposal from the product team into concrete engineering tasks
• Provide thoughtful and constructive feedback in a code review
• Give a compelling demo of your work to executives or customers

A study by Indeed of over 2,000 tech hiring managers found that "communication skills" was the single most in-demand quality in developers, with 53% of respondents placing it in their top three desired traits.²

Specifically, the ability to collaborate effectively with designers, product managers, data scientists, and other cross-functional peers is crucial. By understanding their goals and perspectives, you can ensure that your technical solutions are solving real user needs and business problems.

Some best practices for effective collaboration include:

• Asking clarifying questions to thoroughly understand requirements before diving into code
• Providing frequent updates and demos to stakeholders to get early feedback
• Using collaborative tools like GitHub, Figma, and Trello to facilitate seamless teamwork
• Participating actively in architectural and design discussions
• Prioritizing kindness and professionalism in all interactions

2. Problem Solving and Critical Thinking

At its core, development work is creative problem solving. Employers don‘t just pay us to churn out lines of code – they pay us to thoughtfully analyze complex issues, break them down into smaller pieces, and architect appropriate solutions.

When faced with a new coding challenge, resist the urge to jump straight to your IDE. Instead, take the time to deeply understand the problem at hand:

• What are the core user needs or business goals driving this project?
• What are the edge cases and potential risks to consider?
• How will this solution need to scale as the product and user base grows?
• What are the performance, security, and maintainability implications?

From there, you can methodically break the problem into smaller sub-problems and begin formulating and evaluating different potential solutions. Rely on your experience and knowledge of software design patterns and architectural best practices to weigh the tradeoffs of each approach.

Even with the best laid plans, you‘ll inevitably encounter nasty bugs and blockers during the implementation phase. This is where critical thinking and persistence come into play. Some strategies for effective debugging include:

• Isolating the problem by systematically eliminating potential root causes
• Crafting targeted test cases to replicate the issue
• Utilizing debugging tools and techniques like breakpoints, logging, and stack traces
• Collaborating with teammates via pair programming or rubber duck debugging
• Knowing when to step away and clear your head if you‘ve been banging your head against the wall

Ultimately, problem-solving skills are honed through experience and deliberate practice. Don‘t get discouraged if you struggle with a problem – view each challenge as an opportunity to learn and grow your analytical toolkit. With time and perseverance, you‘ll develop a strong intuition for tackling even the trickiest issues.

3. Time Management and Organization

As a developer, you‘ll be juggling competing priorities and tight deadlines. Without strong organizational and time management skills, it‘s all too easy for important details to get lost in the shuffle or for projects to get derailed.

Some strategies I‘ve found useful for staying on top of my workload include:

• Utilizing a project management tool (like Trello or Asana) to track tasks and deadlines
• Applying the Eisenhower Matrix to focus on high-impact, time-sensitive work
• Breaking large projects into smaller, more manageable deliverables
• Proactively communicating progress and blockers to managers and stakeholders
• Timeboxing exploratory work to avoid getting stuck in rabbit holes
• Taking regular breaks to recharge and avoid burnout

Equally important is the ability to manage your own energy and cognitive load. Software development is intensely mentally taxing work. It‘s essential to prioritize good self-care practices like getting enough sleep, staying physically active, and meaningfully disconnecting from work.

A survey by Digital Ocean found that 82% of developers feel burnt out at least some of the time.³ To maintain peak performance and avoid costly mistakes, you need to be mindful of your own capacity and proactively prevent overload.

On the tactical level, good organizational practices also extend to the code itself. Writing clean, well-structured, and maintainable code is as much about thoughtful planning and discipline as it is about technical chops.

Some essential coding hygiene practices include:

• Formatting code consistently and following established style guides
• Choosing clear and descriptive names for variables, functions, and classes
• Keeping functions and classes small, focused, and modular
• Commenting complex logic and key architectural decisions
• Encapsulating reusable functionality in libraries and helper functions
• Regularly refactoring code to reduce technical debt

By keeping your code (and your work habits) clean and organized, you‘ll be able to move faster, iterate more effectively, and provide a better foundation for your teammates.

4. Constant Learning and Skill Development

Technology is evolving at a breakneck pace. The languages, tools, and frameworks you use today may be obsolete in a few years. To stay competitive in this field, you need to adopt a mindset of lifelong learning and continuous skill development.

As XKCD famously quipped, "I‘ll never remember >80% of what I learned in 4 years of University, but the ability to teach yourself new skills and figure things out? That stuff is priceless."⁴

Practically, this means consistently dedicating time to staying up-to-date with industry trends and expanding your technical toolbox. Some strategies include:

• Regularly reading tech blogs, books, and forums
• Attending conferences, workshops, and webinars
• Participating in online courses and coding challenges
• Contributing to open source projects
• Pursuing passion projects to explore new technologies

A survey of 700 developers by HackerRank found that 73% learned a new framework in the last year, and 67% learned a new programming language.⁵ By continuously expanding your skill set, you‘ll be better equipped to tackle novel challenges and stay ahead of the curve.

But beyond just technical skills, it‘s equally important to round out your knowledge in adjacent domains. The best developers have a strong grasp of topics like design, user experience, product management, and business strategy. By understanding the full context in which your code operates, you can craft more impactful solutions.

5. Business and Industry Acumen

As a developer, it‘s easy to get tunnel vision and focus solely on the technical aspects of your work. But at the end of the day, your code is in service of larger organizational goals and user needs. The most effective developers are those who deeply understand their company‘s business model, strategic objectives, and competitive landscape.

Some key questions to ask yourself:

• How does your company make money? What are the core drivers of growth and profitability?
• Who are your target users and customers? What are their needs, behaviors, and pain points?
• How does your product or service differentiate itself from competitors?
• What are the key metrics and KPIs that your work impacts?

By grokking the broader business context, you can ensure that your technical decisions are aligned with company priorities. You‘ll be able to communicate the value of your work more effectively to non-technical stakeholders. And you‘ll have a better sense of which projects and features to prioritize and advocate for.

For example, let‘s say you‘re working on an e-commerce platform. If you understand that reducing shopping cart abandonment is a key company objective, you may prioritize projects like streamlining the checkout flow or implementing personalized recommendations.

Industry-specific knowledge is equally valuable. If you work in a highly regulated space like healthcare or finance, you need to be intimately familiar with relevant laws and compliance requirements. If you‘re building software for a niche vertical like logistics or manufacturing, domain expertise will help you tailor your solutions more effectively.

In a survey of 1,000 developers by CoderPad, 61% said that "understanding of business objectives" was an important factor in hiring decisions.⁶ By investing in your business and industry acumen, you‘ll be able to provide more strategic value and position yourself for leadership opportunities.

Bringing It All Together

Technical skills are undoubtedly the foundation of a successful development career. But to truly excel and make an outsized impact, you need to cultivate a more holistic skill set:

• Communication and collaboration to work effectively with teammates and stakeholders
• Problem solving and critical thinking to tackle complex challenges and architect robust solutions
• Time management and organization to stay productive and deliver high-quality work on schedule
• Constant learning and skill development to stay ahead of the curve and expand your expertise
• Business and industry acumen to ensure your work is aligned with strategic objectives and customer needs

Especially as you progress to more senior levels, these complementary skills become increasingly essential. In a survey of over 1,000 engineering managers, the top qualities sought in senior developers were "leadership skills" (61%), "communication skills" (60%), and "strategic thinking" (58%) – ranking higher than "deep technical skills" (53%).⁷

So as you continue honing your craft, remember to zoom out and invest in your full professional toolbox. Stay curious, stay hungry, and keep growing. With persistence and dedication, you‘ll be well on your way to joining the ranks of the most impactful and respected developers in the field.

References

1. Stack Overflow. "Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2019." Stack Overflow, 2019. https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2019#developer-profile-_-factors-influencing-developer-success.

2. Indeed. "What Do Employers Really Think About Coding Bootcamps?" Indeed, 2017. http://blog.indeed.com/2017/05/02/what-employers-think-about-coding-bootcamp/.

3. Digital Ocean. "Currents: A Seasonal Report on Developer Trends in the Cloud." Digital Ocean, July 2018. https://www.digitalocean.com/currents/july-2018/.

4. XKCD. "University Website." XKCD, 2013. https://xkcd.com/1289/.

5. HackerRank. "2019 Developer Skills Report." HackerRank, 2019. https://research.hackerrank.com/developer-skills/2019.

6. CoderPad. "The CoderPad Interview: What Engineering Managers Think About the Technical Hiring Process." CoderPad, 2018. https://coderpad.io/blog/the-coderpad-interview-what-engineering-managers-think-about-the-technical-hiring-process/.

7. HackerEarth. "The 2018 Tech Recruiting Report." HackerEarth, 2018. https://www.hackerearth.com/recruit/resources/insights/tech-recruiting-report-2018/.