# 5 Factors A New-Age Software Developer Should Strive For

As the software industry is evolving rapidly so as the environment, technologies, and expectations from a new age software developer. Particularly in a current situation like COVID, companies retain top valued software developers. Even if you have great coding skills, your company might not consider you valuable. Nowadays companies are looking for new-age smart developers – Being Aware, Being Social & Being Smart is the new demand of the hour. A new age software developer focuses on these novel factors to remain competitive, happy, aware and tech-savvy:

![](https://vedcraft.com/images/2020/11/Developer-Skillsets-1024x465.jpg)

Figure Developer Productivity (Slide Format Courtesy: _https://slidesgo.com/_)

## #1 – Client-focused – focus on the outcome

-   Keep your inquisitiveness quotient high and focus on solving the business problem.
-   Focus on the outcome not just on putting in long hours. If you can’t deliver the entire JIRA story, set expectations to deliver incrementally and break them into tasks.
    -   [Click here](https://monday.com/blog/teamwork/why-great-managers-focus-on-outcomes-not-output/) to read this post on how to focus on outcome, not output.
-   Keep your objectives measurable – Like your code performance SLA, keep your job objectives SLA based. Measure it every fortnightly/monthly/quarterly with your manager.
    -   [Click here to watch](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKuPf4H34pU) on how to have performance & feedback conversation by Harvard.
-   Focus on long-term impact when solving business problems.

> “You don’t get results by focusing on results. You get results by focusing on the actions that produce results.” – **Mike Hawkins**

## #2 – Communicator – Learn to sell your idea

-   Learn to sell your ideas to your project manager – often software developers struggle to communicate bright ideas to their supervisor.
-   Prepare your discussion (either by writing on paper or word or even PowerPoint) to present your idea.
-   Learn techniques to tell your story. For example, [Storytelling](https://storynet.org/what-is-storytelling/) is a well-known technique to convey your thoughts in a way anybody can understand.
-   Listen to a sales pitch or a startup idea – observe how startups selling their ideas to their investors.
-   Listen to [TedTalks on Technology.](https://www.ted.com/topics/technology)

> “If you are trying to sell someone your idea and you can’t even define it to yourself, then it is a problem.” – **Garance Doré**

## #3 – Learner – Keep up your learning quotient

-   Keep your updated with technology trends, new design patterns, reference architectural patterns being used by tech-savvy companies such as:
    -   [Netflix Tech Blog](https://netflixtechblog.com/), [Uber Engineering Blog](https://eng.uber.com/), [Pinterest Engineering](https://medium.com/@Pinterest_Engineering), [Facebook Developers Blog](https://developers.facebook.com/blog/), [Twitter Engineering](https://blog.twitter.com/engineering/en_us.html), etc.
-   Subscribe or be aware of developer website of tech companies:
    -   [AWS Developer Blog](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/developer/), [Microsoft Developer Blog](https://devblogs.microsoft.com/), [Oracle Developer Blog](https://blogs.oracle.com/developers/), [Google Developers Blog](https://developers.googleblog.com/), etc.
-   Ask questions or answer questions on communities such as [Quora](https://www.quora.com/), [Stackoverflow](https://stackoverflow.com/), etc.
-   Subscribe to key tech blogging sites such as:
    -   [DZone](http://dzone.com/) (particularly their refcards), [InfoQ](https://www.infoq.com/) (particularly their guides), [Mashable](https://mashable.com/) (for innovation & ideas), etc.
-   Improve your technology skills through MOOC sites particularly [Coursera](https://www.coursera.org/), [Udemy](https://www.udemy.com/), [edX](https://www.edx.org/), etc.

> “I never lose, I either WIN or LEARN” – **Nelson Mandela**

## #4 – Productive – Keep it in check

-   Be aware of the activities you find mundane and think about automating the same or find new ways to do the same. For example – use JMeter to run a unit performance test for your APIs or think proactively about using chaos engineering techniques to build resilient applications.
-   Be aware of any smart or new-age software developer in your team. Collaborating with people having a similar mindset creates new ideas and increases your productivity.

> “First, Solve the problem.  
> Then, Write the Code.” – **John Johnson**

## #5 – Healthy – Keep up with healthy mind, body and soul

-   The most important one as it keeps up the spirit and make sure we have a fresh & healthy mind to counter any challenge and come up with innovative ways to do things.
-   Build relationships & collaborate within and outside your team.
-   Don’t limit your positivity within the team or even company – spread your positivity as you progress.

> “Happy Programmers write Happy Code.”

That’s it – thanks for reading this post. Share your ideas, practices, and success formula as comments!