This content originally appeared on Level Up Coding - Medium and was authored by Ahmed Hassanein
Must-Have Skill for Awesome Developers: "Patience"
Series intro
I thought hard about which topics are essential to talk about: React? Javascript ES2050 features? For sure, those are sexy topics, but the truth is, they will be relevant for a few months only, if not weeks 🤦🏻
After a quick discussion with a dear friend, he told me to go back to the basics: What makes someone a great developer to work with? What takes so much effort and time to learn and improve forever?
While collecting the main points for those articles, most of the skills we came up with were personal, not technical.
So, this is the first part of a series of articles about high-level skills that are as (or even more) important than technical skills.
After more than 11 years of professional work experience, I can confidently say this:
I would rather work with a nice technically-average colleague/manager than the world's most experienced person who is arrogant, rude, aggressive, or untrustworthy. Every. Single. Time.
My point is that soft skills or personal skills are more important than technical ones.
Soft skills become even more critical as you grow into leadership roles. It doesn't matter how technically excellent you are if people can't work with you.
Be persistent. Motivation is overrated.
I thought hard about which skill should take the gold medal on my list 🥇
Here is why patience won:
If you don’t have patience you won’t even finish reading this article!
Motivation is fantastic, but it's a limited resource. Starting something is good, but you won't finish without patience.
I love programming, and I have been doing it for most of my life for fun and profit. That being said, I would be lying if I said I didn't have days where my productivity, self-confidence, and motivation hit rock bottom. I often thought about quitting my job to start a duck farm in a remote village somewhere (still considering it, I will keep you posted if I ever do it 🦆).
Without persistence, you won't apply for 100s of companies to land your dream job, and you won't survive long hiring processes where you only spend stressful weeks getting rejected in the last step.
Use motivation for good days and persistence for bad ones.
Focus on the basics.
One of the most common mistakes I see juniors make is falling under the pressure of wanting to feel "fast" and "productive" so they run to learn React before learning JavaScript or learn Rails before Ruby, and so on.
A fair and reasonable senior shouldn't judge a junior by how fast they are. They should evaluate their attitude, self-reliance, persistence, thriving for quality, and asking the right questions.
Use your junior years to build a good base for your "Jenga" tower of knowledge.
I know that in real life companies push you to the limits. Keep reading to understand how to keep your productivity while doing this ;)
Don't take shortcuts.
Based on the previous point, when you face a new challenge or a bug, you have one of two options: do the quick hack you know to "please" your managers or take it as an opportunity to learn more about the topic. I think you know which is the correct answer *wink*.
When you hit a wall, you either climb it or go back and keep avoiding it for the rest of your life. Right now, you have an amazing opportunity that you are a "junior" so you have the right to "take longer to finish", "ask many questions" and "make more mistakes" so use this privilege before it's taken away from you.
Like anything else, balance is required, so sometimes you will have no other option but to go the hacky way. Just make sure "hacky" is not your default way of doing things! Also, nothing is black or white. "hacky" has so many levels, so set some bottom line to your absolute minimum and keep pushing the bar up as you gain experience.
Take difficult people as a challenge.
You will meet all kinds of people as you work in different companies (even countries).
Some will be amazing technically and personally and you will be thankful for them for the rest of your life. On the other hand, some will be not so great on one side (or god forbid: both 🙈).
You will disagree with some, hate some, and even resign because of some.
However, as you grow older and wiser, you might realize:
oh $h**, I was the difficult person on this situation!
Regardless of who was/is difficult: learn to take it as a challenge and focus on improving yourself. The problematic person will eventually leave, or maybe you will, but at the end of the day, you grow.
Don't run away too fast.
When should you quit your job?
To know the answer, you need to ask yourself this first:
What is more important to you?
Many people care about money the most, so even if they work in a horrible company but are well paid, they would take it.
Some care more about friendly colleagues and being in a comfort zone, and some chase technical excellence.
Make your own list. If your company provides nothing from the list, it's time for you to grow elsewhere.
Why is this mentioned under "patience"? Because you usually don't get the whole list every single day. Some days you will have a higher-than-average workload. On other days you might get into a conflict with your manager or colleagues. Maybe you are not getting along with the newly hired colleague. Whatever you decide, make sure you make the decision based on logic, not just feelings (especially negative, temporary ones!).
That's it! I hope you didn't lose your patience. Did I miss something? I would love to hear your opinion in the comments.
Follow me to know when the next article is ready. You can also stalk me here: ahmed.rocks
Until then: have patience 😉
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Must-Have Skills for Awesome Developers: “Patience” was originally published in Level Up Coding on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
This content originally appeared on Level Up Coding - Medium and was authored by Ahmed Hassanein
Ahmed Hassanein | Sciencx (2022-11-20T21:31:34+00:00) Must-Have Skills for Awesome Developers: “Patience”. Retrieved from https://www.scien.cx/2022/11/20/must-have-skills-for-awesome-developers-patience/
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