Empathy has played an important role in my life in a few different ways. First and foremost, developing empathy and compassion for others is a central element of Buddhist mind training and meditation, so it is something that I have tried to work on every day for over fifteen years. This has helped me to make my mind more flexible and manage my own emotions more effectively, and to understand others' viewpoints and make an attempt to relate to them. Empathy has also been important in my professional life, primarily in end of life/elder/dementia care, to help the patient (as well as their families) to deal with a difficult transition and to avoid shame and self reproach over their own illness or infirmity, as well as their reactions to a loved one's decline.
Empathy helps to build better software in a few different ways: First off, it helps to keep issues around accessibility in mind, and highlights the importance of comprehensive semantic markups for optimal access through assistive technology. It also helps you to anticipate what the user might want or need from your website, teaching you to actually listen to feedback and pay attention to actual user experiences, and can also have the benefit of helping to forego spending time, energy, and money on features that will not, in the end, be helpful or desireable.
Empathy is important for working on a team because it helps to build a solid connection with your teammates. By understanding where others are coming from and what they are dealing with, you are not only able to more effectively communicate your own ideas to them, but you are able to understand how they are framing their ideas. With an empathetic outlook, you will be more flexible and able to fill in the gaps that inevitably present themselves while trying to coordinate tasks between multiple individuals, and you will be less likely to burn out or centralize onto your own feelings when dealing with those difficulties. Since people tend to mirror behavior they see in others, displaying empathy towards teammates will also make it easier for them to effectively deal with their own and others' feelings and experiences, optimizing the whole experience.
Empathy was crucial in working with the last client with dementia I had (from the ages of 94-99), who was in assisted living and had a separate team of between three and five individuals working to assist her on top of that. Dealing with the client directly could be very frustrating, as she had fairly profound vascular dementia and tended to repeat the same few questions over and over (in a very quick loop) for most of the day–without being able to empathize with her personal experience it would be almost impossible to not just snap and give up. My fellow teammates also were often pushed to the breaking point, so empathy helped to understand when someone needed a break, or even needed to go home early or have a replacement for their shift, and act accordingly.
I can have difficulty being empathetic in professional situations where I perceive that an individual is not taking cues to focus, to stop displaying disruptive social behaviors, or to address a problematic gap in their skill set or demeanor. Developing an increased appreciation of patience in tandem with compassionate and direct/proactive communication, as well as recognizing that I surely have blind-spots in my own behavior around those issues, will be helpful ways that I can improve my skills when faced with those scenarios.