While knowing how to code is a skill that will get your foot in the door of huge opportunities, there are other soft skills your coding skill will teach you that will help you become a more well-rounded person and team member within an organization.
In this article, I’d share 5 major skills I have learned over the past few years of coding.
1. Communication
When you hear the word “coder”, a stereotypical image forms in your mind — a young individual sitting behind a computer with large noise cancellation enabled headphones on, a cup of coffee by the side, and 2 wide monitors for whatever reasons. This stereotype is a result of the fact that communication is often overlooked as a strong skill amongst coders. People often assume they are not strong communicators.
Sorry, this is not the reality. As a team leader with over 5 years of coding experience, I have had to communicate project requirements, technical concepts clearly to my team, colleagues, and clients on many occasions. Successful software engineers have the ability to manage expectations, understand and interpret requirements, and effectively convey what is and isn’t possible and why in a given brief.
2. Empathy
One devastating thing that can happen to a coder is to have zero empathy. You are unlikely to work effectively within a team. From my experience working with people, I feel that empathy is beyond understanding other people’s feelings and emotions. It also includes the ability to understand a person’s goals, intentions, and needs. This information is essentially important for you to understand when you commence a new project so that you can produce outstanding results (and perhaps make a solid professional connection along the way).
3. Attention to detail
I have met some coders who told me that they lost their jobs due to their poor attention to detail. If your project manager asks you to implement A and you go ahead with Z, it’s obvious that he/she is going to flag that. As a frontend developer, a UI/UX designer gives you some screens to convert, but your result doesn’t look like what’s on the design. There is going to be an issue on the team.
Knowing how to code requires you to understand how to develop a comprehensive product, accounting for all of the small details that make a user’s experience as seamless and sleek as possible. Learning this skill will also reaffirm your ability to identify errors and implement long-term solutions in resolving them.
4. Problem-solving
This one is a major soft skill that coding teaches. When you try to interpret ideas or concepts through written code, you adopt an analytical mindset that exercises your logic faculties on a regular basis. This will make you an even better problem-solver, both inside and outside of your coding projects.
5. Resilience
Coding is a challenge and can come with several frustrations throughout your various projects. However, staying consistent in your development will teach you that you can make it through all of the roadblocks you may face and achieve your goals. It’ll also teach you that creating something of high quality requires time, patience, and commitment, which is a valuable concept for everyone to understand across all walks of life.
Do you want to get started with programming? I’d recommend Codenest Africa, a coding Bootcamp where you will be trained to become a world-class software engineer.
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