At Runtime Revolution everyone is Full Stack, even the few of us who aren’t developers, and we like to keep it that way.
When it comes to development, it’s pretty straight forward, but even our Design, HR and Marketing teams follow the same exact rule. Let me explain. We follow a simple, yet demanding rule: good Hard skills + good Soft skills = Full Stack Runtimer.
Both Hard and Soft skills are equally important and thoroughly assessed during our recruitment process because, frankly, we don’t want to end up with the following examples of developers on our team:
- A technical expert with questionable social skills.
- A social person with questionable technical skills.
Both of them can be very damaging for a team, for a project, and even for the company itself.
Imagine these scenarios:
Developer 1 is a great technical full stack developer. He has his personal preferences, but can write top notch code both on the back-end and front-end. He’s great with several programming languages and frameworks and knows his way around several databases. Seems great right? Well not really, because he doesn’t know how to communicate effectively with his colleagues and team leader, likes to do everything on his own and he’s not very keen on asking for help, even when he’s at a dead end.
Asking for help is recognising you don’t know everything and that someone else might be better than Developer 1 at something. Frankly, we like humble and easy going people to whom asking for help comes naturally.
Developer 2 has great social skills, knows how to talk with different people and in different contexts, and even shows autonomous conflict prevention and management capabilities. He’s a cool guy and great for the team’s morale. Just like the previous example, seems great right? Well not really… because this Developer has some serious flaws when it comes to technical ability and overall coding skills. He might take more time than usual to accomplish a specific task and slows down the project’s development.
This person might be great to hang out with and have a laugh or even to help out on interpersonal issues where his Soft skills shine through, but we’re a software development company where all team leaders and managers can code. If you’re not good at coding, or lack the related fundamentals, we can’t afford the risk of having you on our team.
Finding the right amount of balance between them is where things get tricky and important, but here’s the key indicator to look for:
- Willingness to learn and adapt.
“I only code <insert programming language here>” and other phrases following the same principle are red flags because they reveal low adaptability. New technologies and frameworks pop up every day and we need to adapt and evolve. Who knows what the future will bring?
At first, most ofRuntime’s Developers weren’t very knowledgeable of some of the technologies we use daily and that’s totally fine. Good engineers will pickup the pace and become comfortable with new technologies if we give them time and support, but they need to be willing to learn.
The same goes for Soft skills. You’re probably better at communicating nowadays than you were 3 years ago or in your high school days. You can be an introvert and still be great at team leading. Everyone needs to learn a thing or two.
I know it’s not easy to find the sweet spot when it comes to soft/hard skills, but just like everything else, read, think, do the work and you’ll get better every day. Never settle.
This sums it up.
I follow a strict no bullshit approach to HR and I’m glad Runtime-Revolution supports it. If you are interested in who we are and what we do, make sure to reach out! I’ll make sure you get a clear picture of our way of doing things.