3 Traits the Most Successful Software Engineers Possess

Throughout my career, I’ve had the privilege of working with many extraordinary engineers. Over the years, I’ve realized they all share three common traits.

Continuous Learning

The first and most notable thing I’ve gleaned about these engineers is their insatiable desire to learn. Regardless of how knowledgeable they already are, they are constantly excited to learn new things and continue honing their skills. I’ve also noticed that these engineers will perceive difficult bugs or problems to solve as exciting learning opportunities.

While others view these tasks as difficult or stressful they choose to look forward to them and focus on lessons they’ll learn on the other side of eventually completing them. Their willingness to both continue learning and approach hard problems compounds making them even more effective over time.

Depth of Knowledge

The next thing I’ve realized about the best engineers is they have a deep understanding of how things work. Most engineers learn enough to complete tasks. These engineers on the other hand learn from the ground up and therefore build a strong foundation in the concepts and topics that they master. This helps them understand not only how to accomplish a task but the best way to do so.

Since fundamental topics tend to overlap in software engineering, taking the time to learn topics at a deeper level also helps apply that learning to other new topics they’ll tackle in the future. Finally, a depth of knowledge is also helpful in, ironically, understanding the larger picture. The more details you understand, the more efficiently you can craft a holistic solution with software.

Willingness to Help

The final trait I’ve found the best engineers possess is not only their unique ability to teach and convey complex concepts to others but also their willingness to do so. The best engineers I’ve worked with have also been the most willing to help. I don’t believe this is a coincidence.

Helping others is a win-win. Engineers who help others learn and develop are force multipliers for their team. Helping your teammates scale and become more effective increases the productivity of your team which in turn helps your company which in turn accelerates your career. Successfully helping others also further reinforces additional teammates coming to you for help in the future which builds your reputation as a “go-to” person which is invaluable in a workplace.

By focusing on these three simple traits: continuous learning, depth of knowledge, and willingness to help, we can all become better engineers.

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