How to Get Better at Communication and Teamwork, with Patrick Akil

Meet Patrick Akil 🇳🇱! Patrick is a software engineer, Golang trainer, and the host of the Beyond Coding podcast. In this interview, he shares his story of becoming a developer and talks about everything beyond coding - mindset, mental health, life- and soft skills. By the way, this is the 100th episode of the Scrimba podcast! 🎉

In this episode, you will learn how to become a better team player and what being a good communicator actually entails. Patrick will teach you how to find your strengths even if you're not the best coder in the world, why mental health is important, and how creating genuine connections with your coworkers benefits everybody. You will also hear how Patrick pivoted to coding after initially missing an opportunity to study it at a university and how he learned from consultants from a company he later worked for!

🔗 Connect with Patrick

⏰ Timestamps

Patrick’s long and winding path to coding through operations (01:28)
Is attending a university a good path to becoming a developer? (05:02)
How Patrick learn development on the job from external consultants (07:36)
People around you will define your growth curve, and mentors are important (10:09)
How much of success is luck, and how much is under your control? (11:09)
How to advocate for yourself (13:13)
What does it mean to be a good communicator (14:16)
Ad break! Next week, it’s Trecia Kat! (16:13)
Why it’s important to talk about things that are ‘beyond coding’? (17:53)
How not to be too harsh on yourself (19:37)
Creating a system that doesn’t rely on motivation (21:55)
What’s more important: hard skills or soft skills? (24:04)
The typical roles within a team (25:28)
How to get better at teamwork (29:04)
Where does perfectionism come from? (33:17)
How to get better at receiving feedback (35:11)
How to apply the takeaways from this interview to interviewing for a job without going over the top (37:56)
Redefining what success means (40:19)
What are goals (43:05)
How Patrick got his first developer job even though he wasn’t expecting to (44:15)
How Patrick became a podcaster (47:54)

🧰 Resources Mentioned

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