If you think technical skills alone will make you a good developer, you're wrong. I've seen countless developers who are great at writing code but unbearable to work with. They make projects stagnate, create bottlenecks, and ultimately impact the product's success.
So, let's get right into it. These are the soft skills you need to master to become an exceptional developer:
Overcommunication > Undercommunication
For the love of God, communicate. If you finish a task, send a message to the appropriate stakeholders. Don't wait for your weekly standup, and don't wait for them to ask you. A personal pet peeve of mine is asking a developer if they're done with XYZ and hearing, "Oh yeah, I finished that the other day." Your team might work with tickets, and marking something as "Done" might seem sufficient, but in general, if someone is waiting for you to complete something, please keep them in the loop about its progress.
Think about the product, not about yourself
Certain tasks fall into a gray area regarding whether they should be handled by the backend or the frontend. Regardless of your role, don't push tasks to another team just because you don't feel like doing them. Remove yourself from the equation, think honestly about what makes the most sense, and make a decision based on that. If people suspect that you make decisions based on how much you feel like working on a given day, you're toast.
You are not your code
Don't take feedback personally. 99% of the time, feedback is meant to help you grow. Additionally, you'll often work on features that end up being scrapped. Don't fall in love with your code—accept that business needs change, products evolve, and your job is to write code that aligns with those changes.
This doesn't mean you shouldn't speak up if you notice something wrong in the development process that causes people to change their minds constantly and waste resources. However, if the change is based on a good reason, just accept it, suck it up, and rewrite the code.
