Why yesterday was my worst day as developer
I could tell you what soft skills are, but in order to explain how important they are, I have to put you in the situation.
Yesterday, after 4 months of working in the code, I had to show a demo to one of my employers’ client. After 4 months, they expected a lot to be done.
In those 4 months, I could only dedicate less than 3 months to their project as I spend 1 month doing another project for another client (and I took 2 weeks of holidays).
Didn’t went well.
A few things didn’t work as well I thought they did, having really specific bugs. A few features were missing because I didn’t read properly the specs. And even more (I don’t want to bore you with the details).
The point it is that it was bad. It was pretty bad. For my employer. For me. Specially for me.
How did I feel
So the situation, as I said, was pretty bad. A few but critical features didn’t work as I’ve planned. I feel bad. I felt like a failure.
Not on a technological-savvy side, but as a person understanding other people needs.
I’m going to fix the bugs pretty fast as I can solve most of them in less than 15 minutes each one. I don’t mind about that.
The problem was that I had the specs written down and I didn’t pay the 100% attention they deserved, as I focused on solving very specific bugs before the demo.
The problem was that 4 months passed without showing a demo to the clients, nor asking them when I had doubts about implementing one feature.
Definitely, the problem was that I thought the only thing I was to focus was on my tech skills.
Now what?
I could blame the client for switching features in and out. I could blame my employer because he didn’t hav a proper follow up with everything I did.
But I know 99% of the problem was me. I should not need my employer to keep an eye on me to produce what the client needs. I should have kept more in touch with the client to see if what I was doing is what they want.
Yes, I have little experience as a programmer in a business environment, but that’s not an excuse. I want to be a professional in every field of my job.
And for that, being good with code is not enough. You need soft skills
But…what “soft skills” are?
I can tell you how important soft skills are, but first, you need to know the meaning of “soft skills”.
Soft skills are personal attributes that let you interact with other people effectively.
We are talking about empathy, teamwork, good communication flow (with your clients, but also employers, workmates, etc), adaptability, leadership, presentation skills, being open-minded to other people, being accountable of the bad things (not only the good ones), learning from criticism.
Seems like “Soft skills” is more than a buzzword that people throw randomly at LinkedIn, right?
I have worked with developers that could create good code and fast. They didn’t last too much.
And they didn’t because producing code it is not the only thing you need to do.
What is the point of being good at coding if you don’t tell your problems?
Why go without telling your boss which features did you add and which ones you didn’t?
Why care about a good presentation if that is not going to be the final product?
You can answer the question yourself: Would you hire a good programmer that can make whatever you want in 1 week, or would you rather hire an average one, that will need 2 weeks, but keeps a constant communication with you telling you what it is he doing, the trouble he’s running into and telling you that he thought about adding X feature that was not requested by the client, but it will help him because it will solve a future problem he didn’t foresee?
Conclusion
Despite what you read, by all means, keep learning how to code. You won’t be hired otherwise.
But also learn and improve your soft skills. Communication with your boss, clients and coworkers is important. Knowing how to throw a good presentation too. How to manage your time.
Learn soft skills because it will multiply your value as a programmer as interacting with people is the bread and butter as a developer.
You won’t last in your job otherwise.
