8 Useful Soft Skills When Working In Tech

What are soft skills? The Oxford Dictionary would describe them as: Personal attributes that enable someone to interact effectively and harmoniously with other people.

Things like empathy, open-mindedness and a willingness to learn are all universal skills. No matter what you do, or who you work for – these skills are valuable.

These are our pick for top 8 useful soft skills for working in tech:

1. Empathy

Being able to empathise with your team allows you to fully understand the problems that they face and find a way to make your project work for everyone.

Suggesting new ideas is much easier when there is an understanding between members of a team that there won’t be any negative feedback or mockery, no matter how someone feels about an idea.

Empathy allows us to predict how others are likely to react to what we say, meaning that we can tailor how we speak to our audience.

Empathising with your client or user and a team member/colleague can mean different things. While you may not agree with, or like, your colleagues ideas you have to do your best to keep the workplace productive. When you understand that, it makes contesting their ideas and giving feedback land a lot better. 

On the other hand, when it comes to dealing with your client or user empathy allows you to see things from their point of view. Being able to understand your client or user with empathy can do big things for company innovation and sustainable success. 

2. Communication

Having good communication is an invaluable skill to have both in your personal and professional life. 

These are some points that can help you communicate effectively every time: 

• Speak clearly and with conviction, even if you’re unsure of yourself — people will pay more attention to what you say if you say it with confidence.
• Listen. The best communicators spend as much time listening as they do talking.
• Don’t interrupt the person speaking. Let them say what they want to say, then let them know your thoughts.

3. Teamwork

No matter what you do, teamwork is always important. Being able to properly integrate into a team when necessary to work collaboratively is something that any organisation – especially in tech – looks for in their employees.

Working well with others makes what you’re working on more fun, and makes people more likely to help you in the future. It also means that whatever you work on has a higher chance of success.

You may not always agree with the people in your team, but having different points of view helps to build, or continue building, a successful organisation.

4. Approachability and Helpfulness

At some point, someone’s going to want to ask you something. It could be about your tasks for the day, about an issue or a bug, or just about your plans for the weekend.

If people don’t feel they can approach you and ask you something, when something goes wrong, they’re less likely to ask you for help. That could mean that a little problem soon evolves into a big one.Not being approachable or helpful also means that others are less likely to help you down the line if you need it.

Establish a relationship with the people on your team, this way they’re more likely to work with you and not against you.

Make it clear to people when you don’t have time to communicate by putting headphones in when you’re busy and setting yourself offline on the company chat. If someone still approaches you, set a time when you can meet to discuss things.

5. Patience

Sometimes you’ll be a part of a team or meeting that doesn’t just consist of people in your same role. That means you’re going to have to explain the reasons behind your decisions and do so in a non-technical way. Some people will get everything straight away, while others will need more time. Being patient with people at moments like this is crucial for teams to work well together.

Not everyone understands how difficult programming is, or how long code takes to write, or the pressure of managing a high-level technical project. They may ask you to do something without understanding the scope of what they’re asking. This can lead to frustration. Take your time to explain why it’s not as simple as they think, and to answer any questions that they have. Once you’ve taken the time to do this, future sessions will become much easier!

6. Open-mindedness

When your mind is open, you’re more willing to accept new ideas, whether they’re yours or someone else’s. Even the worst ideas can inspire something great if you’re willing to consider them before dismissing them.

The more ideas you have, the more projects you have the potential to work on.

While not every idea you have will turn into something, you don’t know what will until you’ve thought about it in-depth.

Keep your mind open to new ideas not just from your team, but from the rest of the company and even clients. Clients are the ones who use your product and/or services, so they’re the best people to tell you what works and what they need.

7. Problem solving

Throughout your career, you’re going to face problems. It could happen on a regular basis, or it could be rare, but it’s not something you can avoid.

How you handle problems will have a big impact on both your career and the organisation you work for.

Problem solving is a key skill that decision makers and company leaders look for in prospective employees. So, the more examples you have of problem solving, the better. Once you’re in a company, that continuation of problem solving becomes vital to your teams success. As such, it’s important you continuously hone those problem solving skills. 

8. Accountability

Accountability is all about taking ownership of your mistakes. It can be difficult to admit that a decision you made created an undesirable result, but in the long-term, both you and your employer will be better off.

When you hide from your mistakes, you might find that you or one of your colleagues will make the same mistake in the future.

Instead of running from what happened, put your hand up and admit responsibility. Use the opportunity to analyse what went wrong, then use this data to fix the problem and teach you and your colleagues how to avoid similar mistakes.

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