4 Essential Skills you NEED to Have as a Programmer

As the programming industry becomes more and more competitive by the second, recruiters are scouring candidates for the best talent the world has to offer. As one of these candidates, you need to show your recruiter that you’re the fittest for the role.

However, programming is not all about being the best at coding. There are a TON of other skills that you must master in order to succeed in this field.

To get you started, here are some MUST-HAVE skills you need to equip yourself with to get into programming!

HARD SKILLS

According to The Balance Careers, “hard skills are part of the skill set that is required for a job. They include the technical skills required to accomplish specific tasks, and the expertise necessary for an individual to successfully do a job.”

As a programmer, mastering these two hard skills can help you succeed!

Skill #1: Research

Knowing how to research effectively can help you succeed as a programmer, especially when you’re just starting out. This is because not all companies provide hands-on mentorship for their junior programmers. Most of the time, you need to have the initiative to learn new techniques by yourself. With this, learning how to stand on your own by finding the solutions to your own problems can help show your supervisors how dedicated you are to your new role.

READ: 5 Realistic Advice you NEED to Hear when Shifting to Tech

Start by asking your supervisor for any resources they currently have that you can maximize. These include previous programming documentation from your company!

Another resource that you could take advantage of is Google. There may be some cases where the solution you need has already been solved by others – you just have to learn how to effectively use the search engine!

Skill #2: Organization and Documentation

According to Helpjuice, technical documentation is a piece of content that “​​describes how a product works. This includes the methodologies, features, and functionalities of a product.” In simple terms, technical documentation is similar to a user manual.

These documents can make your company’s operations more efficient and effective as it helps information become easily accessible. With the right technique, these documents can also be easily understood even by people who didn’t have access to them before!

Aside from these, it’s also important to document everything as these pieces of information can help you solve a future problem. If your co-workers also need any help, you could also share these documents!

At face value, this might seem like an easy skill to master. However, remember that these documents are company documents. This means that you’re writing not just for yourself, but to educate an audience.

SOFT SKILLS

In every job, soft skills matter as much — if not more — as hard skills. This is because if you build proper habits and routines that result to you having a good mindset for work, then it would be easier for you to catch up on the technical skills you lack.

In the tech industry, here are two important soft skills that you need!

Skill #3: Comprehension

According to Collins Dictionary, comprehension is the “ability to understand something.” In programming, this skill is extremely vital as mastering it would make understanding tasks assigned to you easier. Aside from this, understanding instructions given to you will also help you communicate better with your supervisors and colleagues.

Even in interviews, your recruiter will already test you for this skill. They will often give you complicated questions and problems that you will need to solve. If you lacked the necessary comprehension skills, you wouldn’t be able to ask the right questions to help you arrive at the correct answer.

Skill #4: Communication

You might think that the programming grind is all about learning how to be the best at coding. News flash: being the best coder won’t mean that you would also be the best employee. If you lack proper communication skills, you wouldn’t be able to do your job to the best of your ability.

Communication is an important part of the tech industry. Having good communication skills can help you explain and defend your solutions to problems. It could also help you — again —  properly ask the right questions in order for you to get the right answers.

Note that proper communication also involves learning the art of empathy. Empathy is the ability to “relate to how someone is feeling.” In terms of empathy at work, this could refer to employees valuing their co-workers’ feelings through appreciating and listening to their opinions!

All in all, these are some of the most important skills you need when you enter tech. If you’re stepping into a new tech role, mastering these skills is a great place to start for you to reach success.

Find your next career opportunity with Kalibrr, where jobs find you!

Kalibrr is a recruitment technology company that aims to transform how candidates find jobs and how companies hire talent. Placing the candidate experience at the center of everything it does, we continue to attract the best talent from all over, with more than 5.5 million professionals and counting. Kalibrr ultimately connects these talents to companies in search of their next generation of leaders.

The only end-to-end recruitment solutions provider in Southeast Asia, Kalibrr is headquartered in Makati, Philippines, with offices in San Francisco, California, and Jakarta, Indonesia. Established in 2012, it has served over 18,000 clients and is backed by some of the world’s most powerful start-up incubators and venture capitalists. These include Y Combinator, Omidyar Network, Patamar Capital, Wavemaker Partners, and Kickstart Ventures.

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