Great programmers are rare. Their productivity is 3 times that of an average developer and 10 times that of a bad developer*. The top 1% of developers in the world don’t just write solid code but have important intangible traits. Here are few qualities that set a great programmer apart from the crowd.

A Positive Attitude

A great programmer cares about your product’s success. They are positive, willing to go the distance to get the job done and bring their best every day. Although it’s important not to exhaust a developer with frequent urgent deadlines, crunch time is sometimes unavoidable. When you need to bring a product to market or need to ship a certain feature out for a deadline, the great programmer will step up and get the product released whenever possible. Because they care. A great developer doesn’t let their ego get in the way of constructive criticism. A good way to instill a positive attitude is to give them interesting projects to work on, give them a sense of ownership, and praise them for good work. Startups can give out stock options, pay employees for working overtime, provide compensated paid leave, or find other perks that ensure great programmers are retained.

Supreme Communication Skills

Good communication skills directly correlate with good development skills. A great programmer is able to understand problems clearly, break them down into hypotheses, and propose solutions in a coherent manner. They understand concepts quickly, or ask the right questions to help make them clear, and don’t need to have everything written down in a specifications document. Great offshore developers usually speak multiple languages coherently and are very comfortable with documentation in English. In the world of technology, English is the defacto language of most documentation and developer interactions.

Good Time and Task Management

A great programmer is highly reliable. They have a strong work ethic and show up at meetings on time. An important skill is the ability to estimate the amount of time needed to complete a task, communicate this, and deliver on it. Exceptional developers are great at managing their clients or leaders instead of you managing them.

Quick Learning Ability

Great programmers are usually amazing self-learners. They have the ability to teach themselves new languages and technologies quickly and often do so out of personal interest outside of work. They have the ability to process information and make connections on the fly. Every programmer will experience a situation where he or she doesn’t know the answer; great programmers will find different resources, talk to the right people, and find the solution no matter what. The best skill anyone can have is knowing how to learn, and great programmers have mastered the skill of self-learning.

Deep and Broad Technical Experience

Great developers have worked with a handful of technologies long enough to become experts and are competent with many others. Of course, finding a programmer who has worked on a product similar to yours or that uses the same technologies is beneficial. Successful programmers will follow coding standards and will write code that is understandable and commented so that it can easily be passed on to someone else. By combining their cognitive abilities and diverse industry experience, they’re able to arrive at optimal solutions quickly. An experienced developer is well versed in best practices like agile development and task management software such as Jira and Trello. They also have mastered version control, different development environments, and the process of deploy applications – so ask questions along these lines.

A Good Team Player

Another superb quality of premium developers is their ability to help other developers get better. They offer teammates help when they are stuck, teach new skills to others and write documentation that would help teammates not only in their organization but the developer community in general. They also should be able to navigate the interpersonal nuances of working in a diverse team and be able to navigate conflict gracefully should it arise.

Big-Picture Focus

A great programmer doesn’t simply complete tasks that are assigned to them, but rather they take into account the broader impact on the system and user experience as a whole. They want to know the feature they’re building is of high value and they are willing to speak up when a change request may compromise some other aspect or use-case of the software.