It's all about hard skills for the vast majority of folks who are considering a career in software development. It makes sense because the technology industry is dynamic and continually evolving, with new frameworks appearing while others fall out of usage. The typical learning path involves studying the fundamentals of computer science, enrolling in web development classes, gaining experience through participation in hackathons, and attending technical meetings to keep the knowledge current.
Although these tasks are necessary to be a skilled developer, they only represent half of the work. Hard skills were previously given a higher importance because the development process was more sequential. However, there are usually individuals behind fantastic products. This concept demanded modifications to the approaches in use, and it gave rise to Agile, a philosophy that revolutionized the software engineering sector and has gained enormous popularity over the past few years. The strategies provided by this methodology were used by around 71% of businesses, which sparked a lot of interest in employees' soft skills.
Agile philosophy always puts people over the processes, thus more and more companies nowadays want to hire specialists with strong soft skills, because they are much harder to develop than closing some technical gaps that come with the experience.
So here we go with the top 5 soft skills that are critical for a developer working in Agile environments:
1. Efficient Communication
Despite the fact that the majority of time developers spend on coding, they also need to communicate a lot. They communicate with co-workers and tech leads to find the best solution to a problem, with a product owner or project management to report the progress and for sure clients to demo the work done, or discuss new technical tasks or project details. Sometimes, the information to deliver is not pleasant, when some request is not achievable from the technical point of view, or you need to defend your point of view in the argument why your solution is better than the colleagues one. So, you will need to know how to learn the basics of nonviolent communication and other strategies to make communication effective.
2. Adaptability
Development work may be unpredictable, because the changes of project scope, or technology
stack, are inevitable. Especially in the Agile environments where continuous delivery and improvements are thriving. There may be many reasons for them and sometimes they are impossible to predict when a force majeure happens, or a business sets up new requirements. Being able to quickly adapt to these changes upskill, and learning how to work with the new technology stack is important for any developer. It's all about embracing agility in practice.
3. Conflict Management
Agile is full of communication and team events where sometimes conflicts are not inevitable. Let's take retrospective sessions where the team is discussing the previous iteration period, be it a sprint or the whole project, and share the views on what was good, what they loved, and what went wrong and could have been done better.
The second part is a tricky one, as it may be hard to explain everything keeping emotions under control, thus there's a high risk of conflicts. They may cause disruption of a friendly atmosphere in the team, and personal tensions negatively impact productivity and project quality. That's why knowing how to turn them into constructive discussions and striving to find win-win situations are vital. Even if you are not in the leading position, it's equally beneficial for your growth as a specialist.
4. Proactiveness
In a dynamic environment, changing tasks and priorities, it's easy for developers to become demotivated when they just follow the instructions. Proactiveness here can help to take more control over your work. Developing this skill is critical for career advancement, as the higher the position and the more responsibility it bears, the closer attention is dedicated to the assessment of the candidate's proactiveness. It starts small with being not afraid to clarify why a task should be done this way, offering your ideas on how to improve a certain solution, and enhancing your knowledge by taking on completely new tasks. It's also about sharing concerns and raising red flags that may lead to potential risks on the project.
5. Collaboration
The delivery of a product is only possible with united efforts, where the participation of every individual as well as their interaction with one another plays a huge role and helps to turn all great ideas into practice. So being a team player is probably the first soft skill for a developer. Supporting team members, giving a helpful hand, and working in one direction that are core pillars of collaboration help to achieve the desired results faster.
Performing a self-assessment or asking your direct managers or HR specialists for feedback on the soft skills is the first step to realize your strong and weak points. It helps to outline the development plan and seek ways to improve them. It may include reading professional books and articles, attending workshops, and volunteering to take tasks that will help implement the learned techniques in practice.
Putting the efforts in this direction will be beneficial especially now when the web-development industry is undergoing changes. The tendency of automation and enhancement of the development processes with Artificial Intelligence and smart algorithms that will make code writing easier will transform web development. Thus, the importance of soft skills, interpersonal connections, and the ability to work in a team will become even more important.
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