Learn to read code. Learning to read code is a hell of a lot harder than learning to write it. It takes practice, patience and ultimately a language with a hig

Learn to read code. Learning to read code is a hell of a lot harder than learning to write it. It takes practice, patience and ultimately a language with a high quality working debugger. Once you learn to read code in one language it isn't hard to learn to read it in another. Love your IDE/editor, and make sure that you have split views (viewing parts of the same file or two files at once). This feature is essential to being able to read code! Figure out the difference between "I wouldn't do it that way" and "this code is bad". It isn't terribly hard to leap from one to the other. Find a mentor! I can't stress this one enough. That guy (or gal though they are rare) pushing fifty who is still an engineer, they are that good, don't want to manage, love their craft, and have seen some shit. They will talk your ear off (probably) for coffee. Lastly writing code is part of the job, once you have master that learn everything you can about your business. Spend time with accountants, CS people, Systems Admins, the IT guys... they are all going to teach you things that will make you better at your job.