Pakistani Developer Level Up (Soft Skills)

This post is for my Pakistani developers (newbies & experts)

Soft skills are key to level up — and they're often overlooked.

A list of Soft Skills that will get you leveled up fast

1. Kindness:

The tech world is full of strong opinions. You may perceive people as mean. They’re not. They just want the best outcome.

Resist the temptation to become an unpleasant person. Radiate kindness while holding a high standard. You’ll go far.

2. Yes there are stupid questions:

With the zillions of tech(stack etc) out in the world. You are not expected to be a jack of all trades. People won't judge if you are unfamiliar with a few. Yes, your clients will bombard you with stupid questions. Best to remain calm.

3. Kill Your EGO:

Pakistani's and their EGO... OMG!... Get rid of it fast

Listen empathically with an open mind. Listen to other people even when they are wrong, try to understand their perspective and why they have it. Be sure to leverage other people's insight to improve the quality of your own work.

4. Do the right thing, with intent:

Avoid sunk cost fallacy. It doesn’t matter if you spent 4 hours coding a solution. If it's a flawed approach that won't work, trash it.

Make sure there’s a purpose, intent, and clarity behind every line of code you send for review.

5. Become a Professional:

Every task is an opportunity to produce beautiful, elegant code. Coding is a craft; you're the artist.

Learn programming principles. Become a software craftsperson and take pride in your work. Don’t just make it work — make it right.

6. Promote Yourself:

Don't get caught up in the day-to-day minutiae, where you end up forgetting to grow your career.

Start each day with a high-impact task that'll inch you towards a promotion. Whether that's signing up to interview, performing code reviews, or adding to your brag document.

You'll be glad you did so

7. Jump Into The Fire:

You'll never be “ready” to work on big features, execute production deployments or go on call.

The best way to get ready for them is… to do them. This will expand your comfort zone and accelerate your growth.