Senior web engineer skills for your resume and career

Although computer science seems like a highly technical field, soft skills are really what differentiates software engineers. One of the most important qualities of any software engineer is explaining their code clearly at various levels of technical depth and explaining why certain design decisions were made. You could write code that does amazing things, but if that code consists of snippets you pasted from StackOverflow without really fully understanding them, it will be a huge headache for anyone who needs to come into the codebase later and maintain or update it.

Another one is asking the right questions. Imagine you are dropped into a huge codebase and asked to add a new feature (very common!). There's no time to understand everything that is going on, but on the other hand, you need to understand enough of the code to do your task effectively, which involves asking questions. A failure to ask questions will likely result in you wasting a huge amount of time working on something that is ultimately not useful, for instance, re-implementing a complex function that already exists somewhere in the codebase.

Being comfortable with refactoring code is definitely one of the big ones here. Absolutely no one writes perfect code right off the bat - a good software engineer should recognize that and always be open and receptive to suggestions about improving their code. Even in the absence of such suggestions, a software engineer must be able to independently recognize that "the tower is about to fall over"! Meaning, if the code is turning into a real mess, a good software engineer will be able to realize that and independently begin refactoring it into a better state, even if that takes time away from implementing new features.

Another one I'll mention briefly is designing class inheritance diagrams to solve a new problem. The right structure here can allow components to be easily re-used and extended. But the wrong structure can lead to disastrous consequences, so it requires a lot of thought about how things will likely evolve in the future.

There are several areas that are "hot" right now, such as the previously-mentioned data science, artificial intelligence, and systems, but also cybersecurity and databases/data warehousing. That being said, the most important thing for a new graduate seeking employment to do is just to do anything, produce something. Tech employers don't and have never trusted computer science credentialing; that mistrust is the origin of the infamous "tech interview," used to verify whether a candidate actually has the technical skills to back up their piece of paper.

So to preemptively answer that question and get a leg up on other candidates, graduates should be sure to generate some artifact(s) that demonstrate(s) their technical and organizational skills. Show them that you can plan a project, design it, see it through in programming it, and do so in a responsible, organized manner (good coding style, readable code, well-documented, and using proper version control), and you'll have addressed your future employer's greatest worries right off the bat.

If it's a project in one of these "hot" areas or specifically tuned for the work the employer does, all the better, but anything the employer is doing is probably leagues beyond what a fresh graduate can do by themselves in a few months, so ultimately they're not going to be that impressed with your domain-specific technical knowledge. Instead treat it more as an opportunity to show off your "soft" skills, your programming maturity, and your ability to actually produce a product rather than just answer exam questions. And while you're at it, you might as well make it something fun for yourself so you'll be driven to finish it.

As it always has been, the ability to communicate with others would be a critical skill for college graduates. Additionally, it will be more necessary for professionals to work cross-culturally, as the U.S. is becoming more diverse.

As I mentioned above, the ability to adapt to change. My favorite course is database management systems. I tell my students that the software that we use today likely will not be around for the entire span of their careers. They really need to learn how to quickly work with new technologies, languages and systems. In the span of my career much has changed. I have always found new technologies exciting and refreshing. Employers want to hire graduates who have a set of technical skills in programming languages, database management systems and techniques (such as data mining) but also can learn on the job and be excited to learn new things.