I think it would be rude to give identifiable examples, but the things that trigger my subconscious when reading good code are often the perfect balance of aest

I think it would be rude to give identifiable examples, but the things that trigger my subconscious when reading good code are often the perfect balance of aesthetics, pragmatism, and mechanical sympathy for one's surroundings. Understanding even the absolute basics of how modern processors actually work is a huge plus for me because I'm biased. The absolute basics also apply obviously - good comments, variable names that I don't have to run the program to divine the meaning of for example. I wouldn't try to judge this based on an interview or whiteboard however, real code written for fun rather than dance monkey dance