Interviews revealed common patterns,
- performance/productivity mostly relies on intrinsic evaluation.
- managers mostly focused on sprint success where developers focused on building flawless products.
There are more patterns we identified but not related to this question(I can share them if you want).
"intrinsic evaluation" and "building flawless products" are my key terms so,
Developers wants to build flawless products.
Managers need to reach sprint success.
Two different perspectives.
To align those, most developers put in extra efforts (long working hours, no weekends, etc.), which leads to burnout.Not every manager has the same experience managing teams, so extra efforts either seem natural to them or aren't seen.
So my question is,
how might we address those unseen efforts while productivity/performance is evaluated on intrinsic feelings?
For me, I focus a lot on communication – especially presentation and public speaking, which is always an issue. Now I am branching out. I’ve started searching for things like Ethics (especially with the improvements in AI, this is becoming a hot topic). And since I work remotely, I am also realizing the benefits of teamwork, getting promoted while working remotely, creating a company culture are also important skills to gain.
What do you think? What soft skills or side skills should programmers focus on improving? Anything else you think would be beneficial to add to a developer’s collection of skills?