Ask HN: Which soft skills do you develop as a programmer?
I have been a programmer for about 15 years now, and I still try to hone in on skills that will make me better every day. One thing I realized is that I do not spend as much time on soft skills, There also aren’t many companies out there who target programmers for soft skill development either.
For me, I focus a lot on communication – especially presentation and public speaking, which is always an issue. Now I am branching out. I’ve started searching for things like Ethics (especially with the improvements in AI, this is becoming a hot topic). And since I work remotely, I am also realizing the benefits of teamwork, getting promoted while working remotely, creating a company culture are also important skills to gain.
What do you think? What soft skills or side skills should programmers focus on improving? Anything else you think would be beneficial to add to a developer’s collection of skills? Communication for sure. I think one of the hardest skills to develop is being appropriately critical without coming off like a jerk. This is especially true in remote teams where even the best conferencing solutions can't transmit subtle cues like body language. I have been going about this by devoting a lot of time (maybe triple what I would intuitively expect) to writing thoughtful comments on code reviews/issues. And, while doing so, thinking through how I would go about the same conversation if it were in person.