For me, it was grabbing every bug ticket in the company. I just fixed bugs on top of whatever else was going on. I learned all the ways in which bugs can appea

For me, it was grabbing every bug ticket in the company. I just fixed bugs on top of whatever else was going on. I learned all the ways in which bugs can appear, when to bring up potential issues ("if I fix this bug, our sales may drop by up to 25%"), how to find the causes of bugs, and how to fix them. I think this makes you appear to be a better programmer, because you learn to look out for things that will increase/decrease sales, you can spot bugs before they're even merged into the codebase, and you can communicate technical issues well. Note that I said "appear" because I bet most great programmers don't think they're all that great. Hell, I've done what I think is amazing work only to be told it is shit. I've also done what I think is shitty work and told it is great (or maybe they're just being nice and its shit, who knows). At the end of the day, if you're solving more problems than you're creating, you're succeeding.