Software Engineering is more than writing code

Software engineers are usually very clear that Coding is a skill that they need to build in order to develop and grow in their career. But what other skills are important to delivering great customer & business outcomes with software? Communication? Security? Mentoring? 

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If we aren’t clearly explaining to our ICs what skills we expect them to develop then they are left to guess based upon the work in front of them, what they see their peers doing, and our feedback. These are imprecise, prone to misunderstanding and reactionary. 

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Here at Kaleida we believe that growth and career development should be transparent, clear and specific. We’ve defined ten skills that we think all software engineers should develop in order to shine and deliver great business outcomes for their organisations. These skills are a mix of “Hard” technical skills like coding and security, and “Soft” growth skills such as communication and mentoring. 

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Teams that are on Kaleida have clarity on the skills to build, and the start of great career conversations. And isn’t that what we all want for our folks? 

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If you aren’t on Kaleida, you can still start by creating your own list of 10 skills for your team to develop and sitting down with your ICs to make it clear the skills that you think they should be developing in order to grow as individuals and to deliver great business outcomes.

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What core skills are your team currently building?

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