If you want to become a really well-rounded developer, you need to know a tad bit more than how to code. Unfortunately, working 80 hour weeks, dating the boss’ daughter (although it doesn’t hurt), and understanding the main concepts of coding is not enough.

A great developer needs to demonstrate the outstanding human skills necessary to have a strong impact on their organizations. As you’ve probably guessed, the main topic of this article is the most effective soft skills every developer should have.

Communication Skills

These skills should be in the backpack of every developer. Without the ability to build proper communications, you can’t consider yourself a professional. Programming is not simply about talking with your code, pc, and coffee machine. From time to time, you inevitably need to participate in meetings where you need to:

• Try not to interrupt people in the middle of their conversation. No one likes to be interrupted. What you need to do is listen and hear the person’s full story. Take notes, if necessary, to make future comments. Trust us, your partners will be grateful.
• Be confident — everywhere, anytime, always! If you’re normally quite sure of yourself, pay special attention to what you say and how you say it to avoid offending others.

You need to be able to explain complicated concepts in simple words. This ability is especially useful for communication with your clients. There are bunches of situations when you need to explain highly technical ideas in non-technical language. Take into account the fact clients probably won’t understand the “dev-language” you use.

Programming is complicated, and people who have never done programming may ask some “stupid” (from your point of view) questions. Be cool, take some time and answer all the questions people have. Once you take the time to do this, future sessions should become much easier!

A good communicator sticks to the rule of the “Golden Mean” and knows when it’s time for a formal, tech language or a casual, entry-level one.

Listening

Listening is the best friend of communication. Everybody loves to talk, but nobody likes to listen. Be one of those who talks less and listens more. You can be surprised at what you learn! Besides listening you have to interpret what you hear. Trust us, it’s not as easy as it sounds.

We have too many distractions nowadays. Remember talking on the phone while working and having lunch. You need to disengage: Close your laptop, put away your devices, silence your smartphone and focus on what the other person is trying to tell you.

Did you miss something? That’s okay, ask for a repeat. Most importantly, the person you’re talking to must understand you’re really interested in what they have to say.

Here’s a tip for particularly complex discussions with several instructions: from time to time, repeat the instructions in your own words.

This impresses people because you listen and actually understand your speaker’s main points.

Teamwork

At some time, you undoubtedly have to work on a team (even if you’re a freelancer or work remotely). That’s why you need to develop team building skills. Nobody wants to be in the same boat with a person who can’t row with the crew..

First, teamwork is social skills and support. That doesn’t mean you have to find out the life story of every colleague on your team. But, you need to know a little bit about each person you work with. If you’ve got an understanding of your team members’ habits and their strengths and weaknesses, you can lend them a helping hand in difficult situations.

Be open-minded to new ideas and suggestions. Respect your team members’ opinions and be ready to accept new ideas. Bear in mind, the most absurd and insane (at a first glance) ideas can inspire something great if you try them before dismissing them.

The rule is pretty obvious — the more projects you have, the more opportunities you and your company have. It doesn’t mean every idea turns out to be successful. But you never know if you never try.

Empathy

The ability to emphasize with people contributes to understanding the challenges people face and is a way to make your project work for everyone. Having learned how to emphasize, you learn how to accept people for who they are.

Consequently, you learn how to accept their ideas. Without negative feedback or mockery, suggesting new ideas becomes much easier. Empathy also allows us to understand how people react to what we say.

If you find someone’s idea really useless, you need to explain it to the person without making them feel upset. Ask yourself why you don’t like the idea. Then provide feedback starting with something positive about their suggestion. Afterward, explain why you find this idea unnecessary, and finish off on another positive.

This is called as a “sandwich” approach. It’s main goal is to give the person an explanation without focusing on the negatives. As a result, the person won’t dwell on the “no” and understands both the pros and cons of their idea. Another advantage of being able to emphasize is you learn to look at the things from other people’s perspectives.

Adaptability

Being a developer means being flexible about gaining new skills and knowledge. You should be quite used to changes. Try to look ahead and anticipate future trends. By adaptability we mean responding to unpredictable changes in your workplace. These changes may include the following:

• Being ready to relocate to a new city or office
• Being eager to learn new skills and technology
• Being ready to take new responsibilities as well as extricating your teammate from a difficult situation

Try to stay positive no matter what. Negative Nellies have never helped anyone. You are a developer so DEVELOP a positive attitude! Stay motivated and positive, especially in the most stressful situations.

Be Curious

Curiosity is an integral feature of every developer. This quality is the fuel for new inventions and self-development. If you don’t know how to solve a problem, experiment! New experiments help you connect the dots and discover new solutions.

Never feel ashamed about asking questions, increasing your knowledge and developing something interesting.

Consider today what you did yesterday and never stop trying. Remember if you failed, you didn’t lose because you learn from the mistakes!

Don’t be afraid of sharing your experience and showing your code laboratory if your projects are not finished. Go to other developers forums and share with other people your way of thinking and observations.

Remember, it is your users for whom you develop your apps. Do your best to understand your users, ask them what they need, and solve their problems. Put simply, never stop being curious about them.

Develop Critical Thinking Skills

As a programmer, you deal with deadlines and stressful situations. To avoid them, you need to understand how to manage your time effectively.

Do you remember how much time you spend planning and how much coding? Having learned how to manage your time, you get an understanding of how to focus on the most important jobs and get projects implemented more efficiently.

Using a Kanban board, you can visualize your tasks as well as optimize your workflow . Physical Kanban boards use sticky notes on a whiteboard to communicate status, progress, and issues. Online Kanban boards draw upon the whiteboard metaphor in a software setting.

The Bottom Line

Soft skills are becoming vital, hard ones. To be only tech-savvy is not enough anymore.

Every developer who wants to become a true professional has to develop softer, interpersonal, and relationship-building skills.

Since we’re all human, we need to understand how to communicate with each other. The main point of this article is to explain the true importance of self-improvements to go beyond the purely technical. Hopefully, you find our guide helpful. Tell us about the ways you’re improving your skills!

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Top 7 Must-have Soft Skills for Beginner Developers was originally published in JetRuby on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.