There’s no universal criteria of code quality. The same source code can be terribly bad for one project, and 100% perfect for another one. Don’t just blindly tr

There’s no universal criteria of code quality. The same source code can be terribly bad for one project, and 100% perfect for another one. Don’t just blindly trust what other people say or write about the subject, when possible ask them why they advice stuff. Learn algorithms and Big-O just enough to pass job interviews, deeper understanding of these is nearly useless in practice, at least outside few narrow niches. Learn to design and code safe and efficient multithreaded software. While not often asked on interviews, you’ll do that over and over again regardless on languages and platforms, because nearly all modern CPUs are multi-core. Learn to use other people’s libraries and third-party tools. While their quality vary, good ones can save you tremendous amount of time. BTW, an IDE is one of these tools. Just don’t forget about costs (some might be too expensive for particular project) and licensing (some are GPL). Don’t afraid to change jobs. Just that you’re working with nice people is not a good reason to stick to your employer. Make sure you learn new stuff, skills degrade over time as the industry moves to new technologies and platforms.