Rather than technical skill in isolation, I'd encourage you pursue work that has the potential to be high impact. Many of the "best" programmers are simply very

Rather than technical skill in isolation, I'd encourage you pursue work that has the potential to be high impact. Many of the "best" programmers are simply very good programmers who have worked on problems that matter. The benefit of this approach is that it doesn't require chasing some nebulous goal. Instead you just have to pursue unsolved problems. A prime example of this is Kenneth Reitz, who made Requests for Python. Yes, it's good engineering, but even more so, he applied solid engineering principles to an undersolved problem. It's now been downloaded hundreds of millions of people and saved countless collective hours.