What qualities should a software engineer have?

 STAY POSITIVE AND PATIENT

A great programmer cares about the end-user and how the product serves them. Their dedication to the user shines through their work. They are positive and patient enough to work through the most boring and difficult problems. They take pride in their code and enjoy polishing it. Cutting corners just isn’t their style. When the occasional urgent deadline occurs, a great programmer will prove their dedication and step up to the challenge. (Although it’s fair to say that frequent unrealistic deadlines will exhaust any engineer)

EXCELLENT COMMUNICATION SKILLS

Good communication skills directly correlate with good development skills. A great developer is able to understand problems clearly, break them down into hypotheses and propose solutions in a coherent manner. They understand concepts quickly, or ask the right questions to understand, and don’t need to have everything written down in a specification document.

GREAT AT TIME AND TASK MANAGEMENT

Great developers are highly reliable and respect deadlines. They understand that humans are terrible at predicting the effort and time required to complete large complex projects, so they use tools and strategies (like Agile Points) to help them.

I find that exceptional developers are great at managing their clients or leaders instead of the other way around. They make life easier for everyone they work with.

QUICK LEARNING ABILITY

The best skill anyone can have knows how to learn, and great developers have mastered the skill of self-learning. This usually comes from a love of knowledge, reading, problem-solving and learning in general. New technologies excite them and they have the ability to pick them up quickly. The way a great programmer will pull disparate bits of information and process information on the fly, always impresses me. While every programmer will experience a situation where he or she doesn’t know the answer. Great programmers will find different resources, talk to the right people and find the solution no matter what.

TECHNICAL PROGRAMMING SKILL AND EXPERIENCE

Great developers are experts in a handful of programming languages and are competent in many others. They have developed the ability to predict and recognize coding problems.

Great software developers follow coding standards and write documentation so their work can be passed on to someone else easily.