The role of a software developer often gets distilled down to a singular activity: coding. While coding is undeniably the heartbeat of the profession,

Hi! My name is Vadim and I'm Just Another CTO and I write about everything related to building digital software products.

Just Another CTO

The article discusses the habits of great software engineers, emphasizing the importance of focusing beyond coding, pursuing efficiency, enjoying tinkering, understanding the 'why' behind the code, thinking in systems, recharging beyond technology, approximating numbers, transferring knowledge to new problems, simplifying complex concepts, playing the long game, and developing a code nose.

Habits of great software engineers

Hey everyone, author here. Glad you liked the article, let me know if you have any questions. Cheers, Vadim.

I relate to everything mentioned there. I should keep it for quick reference.
One of the more opinionated points mentioned is “Joy of tinkering”. Many people will find it toxic and anti work-life-balance. But I believe that like anything in life, if you pursue greatness this is what it takes and it’s also perfectly fine not to be great, you just need to acknowledge that.

A very good read! Thanks for this article i’ve learned many things 🙇‍♂️ I totally agree that watching George Hotz tinker with code looks very cool 😁

This is one of those posts where someone in a profession mistakes their professional experience for the understanding of how people work. Although not explicit, there is perhaps an implication that one should TRY to have these things to be brilliant.
Many of these habits are a byproduct of personality traits, which are largely plastic. Tinkering and lots of projects indicates high levels of Openness(HEXACO- openness to experience). Low Neuroticism can play a large part in the point about environmental fragility.
Great software engineers can (from MY experience and largely the collective commentary of hacker news) have a variety of dispositions.

There’s something deeply depressing about a modern software developer role consisting of 20% coding.