Soft skills are communication, accountability, negotiation, giving and receiving feedback, and working under uncertainty. For IT specialists they don't replace technical skills but determine whether an engineer grows into a senior, team lead, or product manager. By market estimates, employers increasingly look for specialists who can explain their work in business terms, not just write code.
The WEB-HH platform currently lists around 1,897 open digital and IT vacancies, and 47% of them are remote. In remote settings soft skills stop being a nice-to-have and become mandatory: without them it's hard to stay in sync with the team, defend decisions, and get promoted.
What Soft Skills Are and Why IT Talks About Them More
Soft skills are abilities not tied to a specific tool or programming language: communication, empathy, time management, critical thinking, negotiation. They don't replace hard skills but determine how effectively a specialist applies technical knowledge in a real team.
The reason soft skills get more attention in 2026 than five years ago is simple: technical foundations across most candidates are roughly equal. The difference between two developers with similar stacks shows up not in language knowledge but in how they communicate with colleagues, react to code reviews, and take responsibility for results.
Why Technical Skills Alone Are No Longer Enough
Modern development is almost always teamwork. Even a freelancer or media buyer working alone regularly interacts with a client, an affiliate network, or an advertiser. The higher the grade, the more time goes to communication and the less to writing code solo. A senior engineer who can't explain a decision to a non-specialist loses effectiveness for both the team and the business.
Developing soft skills is an ongoing process, not a one-off task. It's worth combining it with structured career prep: see our career guides, which cover grades, interview prep, and salary negotiation.
Top Soft Skills for IT Specialists
Not all soft skills matter equally in IT. Below are five that appear most often in job descriptions and directly affect careers. This is not an abstract list but concrete abilities you can train.
Communication and Explaining Complex Things Simply
Communication in IT isn't "talking a lot" but the ability to explain a technical decision to a product manager, a designer, and a client. A good engineer translates "we moved the logic into a separate service" into "we sped up loading and cut server costs." That translation is a key growth skill: it shows the business value of the work.
To develop it, practice "explaining on fingers": retell your task to someone outside your profession and watch where they lose the thread. Another technique is writing short pull request notes not just about what you did but why.
Teamwork and Distributing Responsibility
Teamwork isn't just "avoiding conflict." It's negotiating task boundaries, escalating blockers on time, and not shifting blame onto colleagues. In remote teams — and a significant share of current vacancies (47% on WEB-HH) are remote — this skill is critical: without it, tasks stall because nobody understood who owns them.
Practical tip: at project start, agree on the format of status updates — where and how the team reports progress. This reduces misunderstandings and frees time for work.
Time Management and Prioritization
Time management in IT is above all choosing what to do now and what can wait. An engineer without this skill switches between tasks, suffers context switches, and ends up finishing none of them well. Time management is closely tied to estimation: a specialist who estimates tasks adequately is more valuable than one who promises "optimistic" deadlines and misses them.
Feedback: How to Give and Receive It
Feedback in IT is constant: code reviews, retrospectives, incident postmortems. Giving feedback without devaluing a colleague and receiving criticism without taking offense directly affects team speed and career growth. Many engineers miss opportunities because they treat code comments as personal attacks.
A useful technique: separate "what was done well" from "what can improve," and always offer a concrete alternative instead of abstract criticism. This is valued at interviews and grade discussions: the salary overview by role shows that at upper grades a significant share of work is coordination and communication, not just coding.
Critical Thinking and Working Under Uncertainty
Critical thinking is the ability not to take requirements and decisions "as is" but to ask the right questions: what problem are we solving, what are the alternatives, what could go wrong. In IT, where technology changes fast and specs are often incomplete, this skill helps avoid building complex systems where a simple solution would do.
Soft Skills vs Hard Skills: Which Matters More in 2026
The right answer is both, but in different proportions at different grades. Junior roles focus on technical foundations and learnability. The higher the grade, the more weight communication, accountability, and the ability to influence decisions carry — without them, moving into senior or leadership doesn't happen.
| Grade | Role of Hard Skills | Role of Soft Skills |
|---|---|---|
| Junior | Key: foundations, stack, learnability | Basic: asking questions, following process |
| Middle | High: solving tasks independently | Growing: communication, estimation, feedback |
| Senior | High, but applied through others | Key: influence, mentoring, negotiation |
| Lead / Manager | Overarching: standards and best practices | Decisive: people, priorities, strategy |
Indicative salary ranges across grades differ notably, but exact figures strongly depend on role, stack, location, and work format — the final number is negotiated, not advertised in the job description.
How to Develop Soft Skills: Practical Steps
Soft skills, contrary to a common myth, are trained just like technical ones. The main condition is practice in real projects plus feedback. Here are concrete steps.
Practice in Real Projects and Open Source
Open source is a convenient ground for sharpening communication: issues threads, code reviews with strangers, architecture discussions. Another approach is taking on coordination tasks: writing docs, preparing demos for clients, helping newcomers. Those tasks provide practical experience visible at interviews.
Mentoring and Coaching
Mentoring works both ways: the mentor learns to formulate explanations and listen, while the mentee grows faster. Even informal mentoring of a junior is enough to noticeably improve communication and patience. Many companies encourage mentoring programs inside teams — one of the few ways to train soft skills during work hours.
Feedback and Reflection
Every few months it's useful to ask yourself and colleagues three questions: what worked, what didn't, and what should change. Write the answers down — this turns reflection into a measurable process. Such a "growth journal" helps you see progress and, at interviews, talk honestly and specifically about your development areas.
It's also worth systematically checking what employers actually want: digital and IT vacancies often list soft skills directly in requirements. Look at affiliate and media buying vacancies and note which personal skills repeat most often.
Soft Skills Employers Test in Interviews
Technical interviews evaluate soft skills not in a separate block but through question format. Candidates are asked about a team conflict, a decision made with insufficient data, the toughest technical argument, and how they persuaded colleagues. Answers reveal real experience, not theory.
What Employers Look For
Employers assess three things: whether a candidate can speak about their work in terms of results, whether they admit mistakes, and whether they learn from colleagues. Stories from past projects usually matter more than self-assessment — "I'm communicative" doesn't work in an interview, but "I proposed a new retro format that cut discussion time" does.
Cases and Storytelling: How to Answer
A practical answer structure: situation — task — action — result. This format helps tell even a complex story briefly and to the point. When preparing examples, keep several stories ready from different areas: teamwork, conflict, failure and its analysis, mentoring, influence without formal authority. For more on interview prep and negotiation, see the WEB-HH blog.
Soft Skills Specifics for Remote Work
Remote work isn't just an office at home. In distributed teams most communication is written and asynchronous, and familiar signals such as tone of voice or body language are unavailable. This raises requirements for precision of wording and personal initiative.
Asynchronous Communication and Writing
In remote teams the main channel is text: documentation, chat messages, task comments. Those who write clearly and structured save the team hours. Practical tip: before sending a long message, state the conclusion first and add details below — this makes the message readable and reduces follow-up questions.
Self-Organization and Discipline Without Supervision
Without an office and a manager nearby, it's critical to plan your day, avoid task sprawl, and report blockers on time. Many companies hiring for remote roles specifically test this skill: they ask how a candidate organizes work and reacts when things go off plan. That's why soft skills for remote vacancies are evaluated even more strictly than for office ones. Remote roles are collected separately — see remote vacancies.
If you're an employer looking to hire a specialist with strong soft skills, you can post a vacancy; terms and pricing are described on the employer pricing page.
Where to Find Jobs That Value Soft Skills
Soft skills are valued almost everywhere, but especially where work is built on communication: product teams, client-facing roles, affiliate and media buying. In these areas, negotiation ability and understanding business goals directly affect outcomes and income.
Roles Where Soft Skills Matter Most
Besides team leads and product managers, the list includes account managers, affiliate managers, and media buyers. For example, affiliate manager and bizdev roles often require a mix of technical traffic understanding and the ability to run long partner negotiations. Media buyers also need communication — with advertisers, networks, and teams: see the media buyer vacancies selection.
What to Look For in a Job Description
When reading a description, look not only at the stack but at how requirements are phrased: "works well in a team," "ready to take responsibility," "can explain decisions" — these are markers that the company genuinely values soft skills. If such requirements appear among the first, the team likely has processes where communication gets dedicated time.
It's also worth refreshing industry terminology: if a term is unfamiliar, the IT glossary helps.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can an introvert develop soft skills?
Yes. The communicability employers ask for is about quality, not quantity of conversations. Introverts often excel at written asynchronous communication, attention to detail, and depth of analysis. Soft skills can be developed through practice: mentoring, documentation, code review, speaking in small groups. The key is regular practice in real projects, not trying to "become a different person."
Which soft skills matter most at the junior level?
At the junior grade, the most critical are learnability, the ability to ask questions, and receptiveness to feedback. Employers understand the technical foundation is still growing, but willingness to learn and not fear clarifying is a marker that the specialist will develop. Team communication also matters, but at this level basic is enough: clearly stating task status, reporting blockers on time, and not hesitating to ask for help.
How can you test a candidate's soft skills in an interview?
The best way is to ask for concrete stories, not general assessments. Questions like "tell me about a team conflict," "how did you solve a task with incomplete data," "how did you persuade colleagues" reveal real experience better than self-assessment. Look at answer structure and how the candidate admits mistakes: if they speak freely about negative experience and its analysis, that's a strong signal. Assess written communication too — for example, via the cover letter.
Do soft skills affect an IT specialist's salary?
Yes, and noticeably. At upper grades a significant share of work is communication, mentoring, and negotiation, not just coding, so specialists with strong soft skills get promoted more often and negotiate better terms. Exact ranges depend on role, stack, and location, so rely on grade ranges rather than fixed sums.
How do soft skills for remote work differ from office ones?
In remote settings most communication is written and asynchronous, so requirements for precision of wording, discipline, and initiative are higher. Signals that are read automatically in an office aren't available here. As a result, structuring messages, documenting decisions, and reporting blockers proactively are valued. That's why soft skills for remote vacancies are often assessed more strictly than for office ones.
Should you list soft skills on a resume?
Yes, but not as a list of abstract qualities — rather through results. Instead of "communicative" write "coordinated a team of 5 and shortened the release cycle"; instead of "responsible" write "delivered a project on time despite shifting requirements." Such phrasing passes recruiter screening and reads better for AI systems. One or two concrete examples work better than a long list of personal qualities.
Do soft skills help with relocation?
Yes, especially when interviewing with international teams. Relocation requires adapting to a different work culture where expectations for communication and feedback may differ. The ability to listen, clarify expectations, and adapt your communication style helps you integrate into a new team faster. For more on moving and visas for IT specialists, see our blog materials.