zlacker

So I work for a small defense contractor, for more than 2 years now. The means to success so far is almost entirely in the soft skills. It’s helpful to understand the technology but the soft skills are so much more important. It’s certainly the 80/20 rule.

Here is what I mean by soft skills:

* Actually caring about people. Checking up on your peers and seeing if they need help.

* Constant awareness of the people under your management. Having some idea of what they are working on where their pain points are. They should always know they can come to you if they have a problem.

* Tracking down undocumented requirements by actually talking to people and getting to know more people.

* Constant awareness of hot issues affecting major projects and operating status.

Since my business is technology contracting the business goal is to put people into employment and retain those people to the success of the client. The more I retain people the more successful I am to my employer. The inefficiency of the work is up to the client and coordinating business partners.

I started here as a developer and within a year was promoted to a manager. In the contract I am still a developer. The complexity there is that I operate in partnership with an another company who would prefer I were a junior developer even though I manage 15 seats. It’s still all about the soft skills.