We have been recruiting lately and so I have been interviewing lots of developers. We need a good all rounder someone who has a good grasp of building public websites in an OO style and is comfortable with TSql, Unit Testing, Web Services etc.

Most of the candidates interviewed have been technically strong enough as the skills required are fairly common. The other key part to this role is to act as a sounding board for brainstorming the options on how a new piece of functionality could be implemented e.g. how long it is likely to take and the options available. To do this a good high level understanding of the structure of the application and the object hierarchy would need to be developed first so were looking for a candidate who can quickly get to grips with the existing codebase. Finally we need someone who can work closely with the product manager with the specs and can interpret the specifications and fill in the blanks.

So on the face of it, not to demanding a job spec, but on top of this the position calls for some great interpersonal skills and professionalism. These are my own thoughts on what constitutes a 'professional' developer.

• Does not rush code into production.
  
• Knows when code is ready to be deployed to staging.
• Understands the importance of system security
• Understands why writing code that is testable is important.
• Knows how to write useful unit tests.
  
• Assumes newly written code will fail until this has been proven not to be the case by testing it.
  
• Understands why a development team needs coding standards.
• Understands why logging is important and what to log.
• Makes life easy for those who must deploy the application
• Understands the importance of documentation and how to write and maintain useful documentation.
• Makes code as readable and understandable as possible.
• Develops a good understanding of the business in which they work.
  
• Is open to new ideas and enjoys debate.
• Adopts a realistic & optimistic attitude to new business ideas.
• Enjoys solving problems and working together with others.
• Understands the value of prototyping and production experiments.
• Offers support to co-workers
• Is passionate about writing software
• Continuously strives to improve their own skill set.
• Is constantly evaluating new tools and technologies.
• Has an opinion.
• Admits when they do not know something or are weak in a particular area.
• Admits when they make a mistake and identifies ways of not repeating the same mistake.
  
• Can evaluate the risks of a particular approach.
• Is fun to work with and enjoys their job.
• Takes responsibility for solving a problem regardless of whether they caused it or not.
• Communicates when a project is falling behind and takes action to remedy the situation.
• Is enthusiastic.
• Is proactive at suggesting new / better ways of doing things.