Insight Blog

The 7 personality traits needed for success in tech

Which personality traits needed for success in tech?

  1. Analytical capabilities
    Technology is extremely complex. If you want to be successful, you should be able to cope with complexity. That means not only being able to deal with complexity coming from technical questions, but also how apply technology as efficiently and productively as possible.
  1. Educational foundation
    Educational foundation matters. I am not talking so much about specific technical expertise learned at school or university, but more about being able to understand certain theories and relations. Having the ability to learn and process new information very quickly is key. In a world where we are constantly learning new things every day, being able to is of great value.
  1. Passion
    Being passionate about what you do is a key ingredient of secret sauce for success. Passion is what drives people to go the extra mile, and if you love what you’re doing, you can turn a moonshot into reality. But if you aren’t passionate about what you are doing, you are doing the wrong thing.
  1. Creativity
    People often believe that simply being smart and having an analytical mindset is enough to automatically find a good solution to any problem. But in the world of technology, in most cases there isn’t a just a single clean and optimal solution. Creating technology is an art form where you have to search for, and often discard, many different creative solutions rather than just having a one genius idea. History teaches us that the best inventions are born out of creativity.
  1. Curiosity
    The best technology leaders never stop being curious, just like children. Staying open minded, challenging everything and always being curious about new things will facilitate your personal success in a constantly changing world.
  1. Persistence
    If you are passionate, smart and creative and find yourself digging deeply into a technological problem, then you’ll definitively need persistence. Keep being persistent to analyze your problem appropriately, always trying to find your solution, and eventually to convince others to use it.
  1. Being a networker and team player
    If you have all the other skills, you might already be successful. But the most important booster of your success is your interpersonal skillset. By being a good networker and team player, and having the right people in your network to turn to for support, your whole journey will be much easier. There might be successful mavericks, but the most successful people in technology have exceptional soft skills.

I’ve also written about this topic in my article “The 3 Developers That Help To Make A Winning Team“, where I explain that every good team is made up of colleagues that are gifted mix of some of the 7 points I mentioned in this article.