I have collated some tips about soft skills which may make you a better software career. All these thoughts come from the book 《Soft Skills》
What kind of software developer are you? —- Keep Focus
You wouldn’t want to have a divorce lawyer represent you for a tax or real estate problem, so specialization is important. A lawyer doesn’t come out of law school and decide they just want to be a “lawyer,” but unfortunately that’s exactly what most software developers do when it comes to their profession.
While it’s true that specialization will close you off from some opportunities, it will open many more for you that you wouldn’t have otherwise had.
Even though it would appear that you had a bigger pool of potential clients, the reality would be that by being a generalist, you’d have greatly reduced your pool of clients to only those who weren’t savvy enough to realize they needed a specialist.
Where to work? Small company or large one? —- Choose Your Job
In a small company, what you do is often much more impactful. This can be both good and bad. With a small number of employees, each person’s con- tributions directly affect the bottom line and are noticed. This means your great achievements are magnified, but so are your screw-ups.
A better reason to work for a small company or startup is because you like that kind of fast- paced exciting environment and you want to be part of building some- thing and watching it grow.
Small and medium-size companies don’t have the budgets for massive, world-changing projects. But for many large companies, technological innovations are common. You might not be able to have a noticeable impact on one of these large-scale initiatives, but you could be part of a team that brings something truly remarkable to the market.
A final note about large companies: politics. Large companies usually have complex political systems that can rival large governments. You can try to avoid politics as a software developer in a large company, but even if you do, other people’s political maneuvers are sure to affect you in some way.
Climbing the corporate ladder —- Get Promotion
It may seem obvious, but often in your career you’ll be faced with choices between more money and more responsibility. The right choice—at least in the long term—is almost always more responsibility.
What if you aren’t offered more responsibility? What can you do to gain it yourself? Sometimes you have to go out and look for opportunities where you can take charge of an initiative or head up a project. There is almost always some neglected area of business that you can find to con- tribute your talents to—you just might have to dig to find it.
One of the best places to search is in areas that no one else wants to get involved in. Perhaps there’s a legacy application that no one wants to touch or a certain module in your codebase that is particularly nasty. These are landmasses to add to your growing empire, because no one will want them, so you won’t be up for much of a fight. But if you can turn those swamplands into fertile ground, you can really show your value.
Another way to indirectly take on responsibility is to become a mentor for others on your team. Volunteer to help the new person get up to speed. Always offer help to anyone who needs it. Not only will you learn more by encountering and solving other people’s problems, in addition to your own, but over time you’ll develop the reputation of being the “go-to” person on the team. Eventually this reputation is likely to land you a team-lead position or management position, if you want to go that route.
It doesn’t matter if you’re the brightest, best, and hardest-working developer on a team if no one knows who you are and what you’ve achieved. All of your hard work can easily go to waste if you can’t find a way to let your boss and upper management know what you’re doing.
Speak up—Do this at meetings and any time you get the chance.
In any organization there are always plenty of people who will tell you why some idea won’t work or some problem is too hard. People like that are a dime a dozen. Don’t be one of them. Instead, be the person who always has a solution to a problem and is able to execute that solu- tion to get results.
One of the most useful kinds of people to have around in any company is the kind of person who never seems to find an obstacle that they can’t overcome. Forget the political games and posturing for position—if you can solve problems that other people can’t or aren’t willing to tackle, you’ll easily become the most valuable person at any company.
Being a professional
A professional is someone you can count on to get a job done and do it right, but a pro- fessional also doesn’t just tell you what you want to hear. A professional will let you know when something isn’t possible or the path you want to proceed down is wrong.
A professional is someone who may not have all the answers, but thor- oughly studies their craft and seeks to hone their skills. A professional will freely admit when they don’t know the answer, but you can count on a professional to find it.
Professionals vs Amateurs
- Professionals : Have principles that they abide by
- Amateurs : Do whatever is asked
- Professionals : Are focused on getting the job done right
- Amateurs : Are focused on getting the job done
- Professionals : Aren’t afraid to admit when they are wrong or don’t know
- Amateurs : Pretend to have knowledge they don’t possess
- Professionals : Consistent and stable
- Amateurs : Unpredictable and unreliable
- Professionals : Takes responsibility
- Amateurs : Avoids responsibility
How to be professional?
- forming good habits
- doing what is right
- seeking quality and self-improvement
It’s important to apply quality to every detail of your work, not just the parts that seem most important. A real professional has high-quality standards for all areas of his or her work, because a professional knows that, as T. Harv Eker put it, “how you do anything is how you do everything.“ Once you’ve crossed the line of compromise, it can be difficult to go back.
Hard work
Success begets success. The more successful you are, the easier success will come. Few people ever actually see real success. Most people go through their careers being mediocre.
Time waste —- Tips about Time Management
Stop watching TV. We live in a world where a majority of people waste a large chunk of their lives watching TV with no benefit to themselves or society. The more you watch, the more you’re giv- ing up control of your own mind and actions. The TV is literally pro- graming you.