Why soft skills matter more than you think as a developer

Being a software developer isn’t just about writing good code. Throughout my career, I’ve worked with many technically brilliant developers, people who are deeply skilled and genuinely committed to their craft. But the ones who truly stand out aren’t just strong technically; they’re also confident communicators, thoughtful collaborators, and able to adapt to the needs of a project or a client.

This is something I care a great deal about. Time and again, I’ve seen how strong soft skills elevate a developer’s impact, especially in fast-moving, team-based environments.

In this post, I’ve outlined five soft skill areas that I consider essential for anyone who wants to grow beyond being just a good developer and stand out as a great one.

1. Communication

“Communication is key.” It’s a cliché for a reason. In software development, and in most careers, strong communication makes everything else smoother. You can be technically brilliant, but if you struggle to communicate clearly, it’s going to limit how effectively you collaborate with others and how well your work fits into the bigger picture.

Escalating effectively when things aren’t going to plan

It’s a situation I’ve seen countless times. A developer picks up a ticket, the team agrees on an estimate, and work begins. But then something goes wrong, an unexpected issue crops up, or a rabbit hole appears, and instead of raising it, the developer keeps going, hoping to solve it within the original estimate. Time runs out, the ticket overruns significantly, and no one’s had the chance to course-correct.

This can quietly derail a sprint or force the business to cap time spent because the return on investment just doesn’t stack up.

The key skill here is to notice early. Start with a rough plan. As you get into the detail, flag any concerns or blockers as soon as they appear. If you feel yourself sliding into a deeper technical challenge than expected, pause and raise it. Escalating doesn’t mean failure - it means giving your team the chance to respond while there’s still time to adjust.

If a task is estimated at three hours, and you raise the alarm two and a half hours in, options become limited. But if you flag it after 45 minutes, the team might tweak the approach, split the work, or even check with the client whether the effort is still justified. That window of time is what keeps a project on track.

Adapting to your audience

As a developer, you'll often need to explain your approach to a feature, or your resolution to a bug, to someone who isn’t technical, or who is, but isn’t familiar with the project in the same depth as you. Whether it’s a support manager, a client, or a fellow developer, it’s important to communicate in a way that matches your audience.

It might sound obvious, but I’ve worked with many developers who overlook this entirely.

When writing an update on a ticket, I like to break it into two clear parts:

• A concise overview of what’s been reviewed, and what has (or hasn’t) changed.
• A list of next steps. These might include questions for the client, or simply note that the change will be included in the next release.

Whether it’s an update, an email, or documentation, step into the role of the person you’re writing for. Ask yourself:

• What do they actually need to know?
• What are they going to do with this information?
• What might be obvious to me, but not to them?

Over-explaining might feel unnecessary at times, but I’d argue it’s far better to anticipate gaps in understanding than to create confusion or force a teammate to rephrase your update for someone else.

Considering the wider picture

It’s one thing to fix a bug, it’s another to fully solve the problem.

Let’s say you've fixed an issue where addresses weren’t syncing from a micro-service into your order fulfilment platform. Great. But in the meantime, several orders on a live e-commerce site have failed silently, or are now stuck in limbo. Your fix is ready to deploy, but what happens next? What about the data that’s already been affected?

This is where stepping back and considering the wider picture becomes essential. As a developer, it’s easy to see your role as delivering working code. But the real value comes from anticipating the knock-on effects of a bug and helping to resolve them too.

In cases like this, ask yourself:

• Do the affected records need manual intervention?
• Could a script be written to patch the bad data?
• Does the client need to contact impacted customers, and have we made it easy for them to know who those are?

Sometimes it’s not your job to carry out all of that work, but it is your responsibility to raise it. Offer options. Flag the potential consequences. Show that you’ve thought not just about fixing the bug, but about restoring normal service.

It’s the kind of thinking that builds trust, and saves time for everyone.

Handling and giving feedback

Feedback is part of everyday life as a developer, whether you’re reviewing someone else’s pull request or responding to comments on your own. And while most teams have a process for it, not everyone has the mindset.

Receiving feedback well means separating your code from your ego. I’ll put my hands up. I struggle with this constantly. It’s natural to feel a bit defensive when something you’ve written is questioned, especially if you’ve spent hours on it. But those comments usually aren’t personal—they’re about improving quality, catching edge cases, or aligning with team standards. Taking feedback in the spirit it’s intended shows maturity and makes collaboration smoother.

Giving feedback is equally important, and arguably trickier. It’s easy to spot issues, but offering helpful, respectful feedback takes a bit more effort. Instead of just pointing out what’s wrong, explain why and, where possible, suggest alternatives. It’s not about policing other people’s code; it’s about helping each other write better solutions.

A good rule of thumb: review code the way you’d want yours to be reviewed. Focus on clarity, avoid nitpicking unless it genuinely matters, and remember there’s a person on the other side of the comment.

2. Documentation

Using the right tone for the right context

This is another one that may sound obvious to many, but yet again, it’s something I pick up on often.

When it comes to professional documentation, things like technical specifications, integration plans, or anything that’s going to be reviewed and signed off by clients or stakeholders, tone plays a bigger role than many developers realise.

In these kinds of documents, I avoid using personal or conversational phrasing like “I think we should…”, “you’ll need to…”, or “we will do…”. While it might sound natural, it can come across as too casual or imprecise in a professional setting. Instead, I aim for a more neutral, objective tone: “It is recommended that…”, “The client should…”, or “This approach ensures that…”. It creates clarity, removes ambiguity around responsibility, and presents the content as considered and deliberate.

This isn’t about sounding robotic or overly formal, it’s about writing in a way that reflects the purpose of the document. A technical specification, for example, isn’t a Slack message or a dev note. It might be passed between departments, signed off at board level, or used months later to resolve a dispute. The tone you use gives weight to the content and shows you’ve written it with the appropriate level of care.

Think of it this way: the tone you choose should match the permanence and audience of the document. It’s a small habit that makes a big difference in how your work is received.

Of course, with most of the areas I’m addressing in this blog post, your company probably has it’s own process guidance on how documents should be written, but the advice covered here is a general skill that should be practised to become a flexible, effective developer.

Writing for clarity and future readers

Documentation isn’t just for the person reviewing your pull request today - it’s for the developer picking up the project in six months, the new starter trying to understand your logic, or even future you, wondering what on earth past-you was thinking.

When writing anything that someone else might need to follow, whether it’s a README, a Confluence page, or inline code comments, it’s worth pausing to think: Would this make sense to someone without the same context I have right now? Clear writing can save hours of back-and-forth, confusion, and mistakes.

That doesn’t mean every document needs to be exhaustive. It means being intentional: explain decisions, define acronyms, and assume the reader might not have been in the meeting where the requirement was discussed. If something is nuanced or based on a trade-off, note it. Those extra lines often turn a half-useful document into something genuinely valuable.

The best documentation doesn’t just describe what’s been done - it explains why it’s been done that way.

3. Scoping & Understanding Requirements

Digging into the why behind a feature or change

It’s easy to take a ticket at face value, especially when you’re mid-sprint and trying to move quickly. But if you don’t take the time to understand the why behind a feature or change, you risk building something that’s technically correct but functionally off the mark.

Understanding the reason behind a request strengthens your ability to plan effectively. It helps shape how you approach the architecture, how you break down the work, and how you anticipate edge cases or dependencies. You’re not just writing code, you’re making decisions that affect how future work builds on top of it.

It also helps you challenge the brief, when appropriate. A client might ask for one thing, but when you dig into why they want it, you sometimes discover they actually need something slightly different, or far simpler. That kind of clarity can save time, reduce risk, and ultimately deliver a better outcome.

Asking why doesn’t mean being difficult. It shows that you care about solving the right problem. It also positions you as a collaborator in the process, not just a pair of hands.

Challenging and clarifying scope diplomatically

It’s not uncommon to receive a ticket or request that’s vague, overambitious, or just doesn’t make sense once you start looking at it more closely. In those moments, the ability to challenge and clarify the scope, without sounding obstructive, is a key skill.

The goal isn’t to block progress or push back for the sake of it. It’s to ensure that what’s being asked is actually achievable, valuable, and clearly understood before time and effort go into building the wrong thing. Sometimes that means asking for missing details. Other times, it means gently questioning whether the request is solving the right problem at all.

The way you raise those points matters. Avoid defensive or loaded language. Instead of “this won’t work”, try “can I check the intent behind this?” or “would you be open to an alternative approach?” Framing questions in a constructive way invites conversation and keeps everyone aligned around the outcome.

You’re not being awkward; you’re protecting the quality of the work, the budget, and the project timeline. And if you do it with care, most clients and project managers will respect you more for it.

4. Stakeholder Awareness & Empathy

Understanding other perspectives

As developers, it’s easy to view a project through the lens of code quality, architecture, or technical debt. But while those things matter, they’re just one part of the wider picture. Clients, project managers, designers, QA testers - everyone involved brings their own priorities, pressures, and context to a project.

Understanding those perspectives helps you work more effectively as part of a wider team. A client might be under pressure to hit a campaign deadline. A QA tester might be juggling multiple release streams. A PM might be trying to balance scope creep with stakeholder expectations. If you understand where someone’s coming from, your responses and decisions become more considered, and often more helpful.

That doesn’t mean compromising on good engineering practice. It means communicating in a way that recognises what matters to others. Sometimes that’s as simple as adjusting your language. Sometimes it’s knowing when to explain a trade-off, or when to just get something over the line because time is tight.

Empathy in a development context isn’t about being soft. It’s about being aware. And awareness is what helps a good developer become a trusted, well-rounded one.

Adjusting approach based on context

Not every technical hill is worth dying on.

Part of growing as a developer is learning when to push for the right solution, and when to take a more pragmatic path. That doesn’t mean compromising your standards - it means recognising that context matters. Deadlines, budgets, competing priorities, and the level of risk all play a part in shaping what “good” looks like in a given moment.

There are times when it’s absolutely right to speak up: when a shortcut introduces technical debt that will be hard to reverse, or when a rushed solution could impact user experience or data integrity. But there are also times when the best course is to flag your concerns, document the decision, and move forward, because the project needs momentum more than perfection.

This kind of judgement comes with experience, but it also requires awareness. Read the room. Know the project’s priorities. Understand the trade-offs. The ability to adapt your approach depending on the situation is what makes you dependable, not just technically, but as a teammate.

5. Time & Self-Management

Prioritising realistically

There’s a point in every developer’s career where they realise that perfect isn’t always the goal. Done, tested, and deployed often has more value.

Knowing where to invest your time, and where to be pragmatic, is a skill that develops over time. Some tickets need careful architectural planning and future-proofing. Others just need to be solved cleanly and quickly, because the impact is low or the context is temporary. Understanding the difference (and not over-engineering where it’s not needed), is part of being effective.

This doesn’t mean cutting corners. It means working in a way that’s proportionate to the task at hand, the constraints around it, and the value it delivers. If you find yourself endlessly polishing or refactoring something that’s already functional and stable, it might be time to step back and ask: is this still helping the project, or is it just satisfying me?

Prioritising realistically also means communicating. If time is tight, surface the constraints and work with your team to find a sensible balance. That awareness builds trust and makes you someone others can rely on when deadlines start to matter.

Taking ownership

Taking ownership doesn’t mean doing everything yourself. It means making sure a piece of work is followed through properly, even if that means handing it over with clear notes, or raising an issue when you can’t progress.

Ownership is about responsibility. If a bug is discovered in a ticket you worked on, don’t shrug it off as someone else’s problem. Look into it. Help figure out what went wrong. Similarly, if you’re stuck or blocked, don’t just leave it sitting there. Escalate it with the right context so others can step in and help move things forward.

A developer who takes ownership is someone others can trust. Not because they never make mistakes, but because they handle them well and see things through.

It’s easy to focus just on your current task list, but keeping an eye on the outcome of your work, and how it affects others, is what sets you apart as someone who cares about the bigger picture.

Final Thoughts

Technical skills might get you through the door as a developer, but it’s soft skills that determine how far you go.

Being able to write clean, efficient code is essential, but so is the ability to communicate clearly, understand the needs behind a request, manage your time wisely, and handle ambiguity with a level head. These skills don’t just make you easier to work with; they make you more valuable to the teams, projects, and businesses you’re part of.

They also take time to develop. No one gets it right all the time, but being aware of their importance is a good place to start. These are the skills I’ve seen make the biggest difference over the years, and they’re the ones I actively try to work on myself.

Learning a software language or framework will give you a great grounding to continue to expand technically and continuously learn other technologies throughout your career. Similarly, giving yourself a good grounding in your soft skills will enable you to naturally evolve them throughout your career and help you accelerate as a developer.

Whether you’re early in your career or years into it, investing in soft skills is one of the best ways to grow, not just as a developer, but as a collaborator, a leader, and a professional.