Three Qualities of Great Software Developers

Each software developer you bring on board is a critical investment in the future of your software product company. You’re spending the time to train them, get them up to speed on your product, and you’re ultimately relying on them to carry your company forward in innovation and development.

Not only is it important to hire software engineers that have great technical skills, they also need to be a great fit for your company.

Here are the top three qualities Modularis looks for in our software developers, engineers, and architects:

1. Problem-solving ability

This first one goes without saying. A great software developer is someone with exceptional problem-solving skills. This person must be able to go beyond plain-old writing code. The individual must have an eye for identifying problems in a timely fashion and make efforts to solve that problem. This is what innovation is ultimately built upon.

A top-notch software engineer manages their time efficiently while thinking outside the box to come up with innovative solutions. While identifying the problem, a great software developer will identify areas of high criticality. After that, they should come up with not only one but a set of solutions suggesting the best course of action. This ensures the solution has long-term benefits and isn’t wholly focused on solving the problem at hand. More often than not, the quick fix always leads to more work down the road because it has limited efficacy of the solution.?

That’s why we always say, tie the solution back to the business goal.?

The more imaginative the solutions, the better the ability of the individual. This means a perfect fit for your organization. Every developer will face an issue that they are unable to address at some time. However, once a business case has been created and requirements are communicated effectively, the most outstanding developers will relish the challenge. They will look for new methods to solve the problem until they find a solution.

2. Understanding your company's mission

While working with contemporary technology is a prerequisite of fulfilling responsibilities as a great software engineer, the engineer must also understand your company’s goals and challenges. They should build and work on modern technology while synchronizing their work with the challenges faced by the company.?

So much of software development goes beyond the code itself and is centered around understanding the problem you’re trying to solve. When that context is built into the product by your software engineers, you’ve separated yourself as a great product from the average products out there.

You don’t want engineers who go off on a tangent, attempting to include the latest and greatest, but unneeded, technology into the codebase. Or even worse, over-optimize subjects they’re interested in that aren’t a high priority for the team.?

An outstanding software developer understands how to manage senior stakeholders’ expectations, predicting the amount of time required to perform specific tasks and delivering or surpassing expectations for what they have promised.?

This all circles back to the larger, more impressive trait of the developer understanding the importance of return on investment that is gained when they’re able to consistently deliver new features on time and on budget, so executives and sales teams can meet their revenue goals.

3. Excellent communication and team-playing abilities

If there’s one trait overlooked the most, it’s this. Something you should be on the lookout for while recruiting your software engineers are their interpersonal and team-playing skills. So much of modern software development is centered around scalability, reusability, and efficient development. Great engineers fit in with both the specific team they will be assigned to and the overall organizational culture, but beyond that, they’re excellent team players with a conviction of carrying the business forward.

A good engineer is always curious and asks all of the right questions. They comprehend and deconstruct complicated challenges and convey solutions to all critical stakeholders in a simple and straightforward way. But a top-notch engineer takes it one step further to ensure the entire business benefits.

There are some great software engineers with technical knowledge out there. However, these might be people who like to drive solo. An excellent developer shares their expertise and best practices with their team and the business in order to upskill them. When they are unable to solve an issue, they give assistance to their teammates. This is usually seen via documentation, knowledge sharing sessions, code reviews, and one-on-ones.

Next up: Management

Finding the appropriate developers isn’t always simple, but if you know what key strengths of a software engineer to look for, you’ll be 10x closer to assembling your dream team.

Once you have the right people in place, the next step is managing that team in a fair, efficient, and effective way. Get?tips and advice on managing your software development team on our blog.