After collaborating with several different kinds of developers with varying levels of skill, here's a list of skills I find very important:
A dev should know how to...
Read and understand an existing code base
Put their own code style preferences aside and adapt to the style and coding conventions of the existing code base
Have a grasp and appreciation of clean code
Identify similar problems and apply common solutions without duplicating existing code
Fix "undefined" errors or null pointer exceptions
This is one of the most common bugs that is usually easiest to spot and fix
Read a stack trace / error message
Identify which component crashed, how to find the file and line number
Identify or isolate possible causes
Understand the technical terms that are often in an error message (e.g. index out of bounds)
Efficiently use the IDE
How to find classes, methods, functions, pieces of code?
How to use code completion, code generators and refactoring tools
Use a debugger
Write useful code documentation and comments
Set up and troubleshoot their tools and workstation
Understand Git or version control basics (branching, merging, rebasing, resolving conflicts)
Write useful commit messages
Take notes and write down lessons learned and troubleshooting steps for later reference
Communicate from developer to developer (i.e. learn the correct terms for their tech stack)
Communicate from developer to non-developer (i.e. how to explain something with non-technical terms)
Ask for help when stuck (not everyone does that)
Figure out when they are really stuck
Some people always ask for help when there is the smallest obstacle that could be easily resolved by googling
Some people google all the time and cannot find the right answers
And ultimately a good dev should know how to google. Coming up with good search terms and knowing how to filter through relevant and irrelevant search results is actually an important skill
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After collaborating with several different kinds of developers with varying levels of skill, here's a list of skills I find very important:
A dev should know how to...
And ultimately a good dev should know how to google. Coming up with good search terms and knowing how to filter through relevant and irrelevant search results is actually an important skill