what are the skills which a 5 year experience java developer is expected to possess apart from learn

[Satyaprakash Joshii]

There are various skills which a developer acquires while working in an organization in his starting stage and later apart from learning technical skills? Some of these skills we learn by doing this and some by just learning on our own. What all can these skills be?

[Jeanne Boyarsky]

Take a look at this senior developer thread. We did a good bit of brainstorming about soft skills in there.

[arulk pillai]

Here is my take on this.

[Satyaprakash Joshii]

Thank You.

Jeanne Boyarsky said

Take a look at this senior developer thread. We did a good bit of brainstorming about soft skills in there.

One important thing I saw in the post which I have not been doing is:

I would probably add
4a) Is not afraid to ask questions. Seen and suffered too many dumb ass people who are on mute during discussions and meetings but will put any orator to shame while discussing the same topic over coffee. For me, that's lack of confidence.

I used to think that if in meetings I ask question to clarify something people would think "Oh this person has still not understood the thing? oh he is not intelligent like us"

that is a big challenge to still ask questions despite showing the you are not intelligent.

[Jeanne Boyarsky]

Satyaprakash Joshii wrote:that is a big challenge to still ask questions despite showing the you are not intelligent.

After a while, you have a reputation for being intelligent and this doesn't matter.

At the beginning, keep in mind that asking questions makes you seem interested. Asking questions also helps uncover requirements or things the person forgot to say.. And even if it is a "stupid" question, everyone is entitled to those every once in a while. It's better to ask a question than not know. That wastes more time/money.

The key is not to ask the same question over and over. That makes it look like you don't pay attention.

[chris webster]

Jeanne Boyarsky wrote:Asking questions also helps uncover requirements or things the person forgot to say.. And even if it is a "stupid" question, everyone is entitled to those every once in a while. It's better to ask a question than not know. That wastes more time/money.

Good advice from Jeanne there.

After >20 years in this industry, I've learned to always ask questions at work. Sometimes it might be a "stupid" question e.g. something somebody else has already answered or everybody else knows or whatever, in which case we can just laugh at my "stupid" mistake. You only need to look at some of my posts around here to see this happening regularly! But a lot of the time, my questions at least help me to understand how to do my job better e.g. by clarifying requirements, and often the process of answering these questions will also help other people to figure out what we want to achieve as a team.

And sometimes your obvious or "stupid" question - the one you where you think "Surely everybody has already thought about this and I'm just being stupid for asking this?" - will turn out to be the question that nobody has actually looked at properly, precisely because they all thought it was too stupid or obvious. And now you will be the intelligent person who helped to bring an important issue into the open.

I think there is also a cultural problem here sometimes - some organisations don't like being forced to confront difficult issues, although that is no reason to stop asking questions if the issue is important: you can't solve a problem until you recognise it exists, after all.

Also, from working with colleagues from other countries, I've noticed that junior developers are often reluctant to ask questions that might suggest they don't understand what they are supposed to do. This can be a real problem, especially with expensive consultancy staff where the developers may also be concerned about embarrassing their own employers or senior colleagues in front of the client. From my perspective - whether as a colleague or a client - it is always much better for them to ask the questions so that we can all make sure they understand what they are doing, rather than stay silent and waste a lot of time (and money) doing the wrong thing.

If you ask a sensible question and get a sensible answer, then you have learned something. If you don't ask the question, and can't find the answer on your own, how will you ever learn anything?