What Makes a Great Software Engineer?

Good software engineers are essential to the creation of good software. However, most of what we know about software-engineering expertise are vague stereotypes, such as 'excellent communicators' and 'great teammates'. The lack of specificity in our understanding hinders researchers from reasoning about them, employers from identifying them, and young engineers from becoming them. Our understanding also lacks breadth: what are all the distinguishing attributes of great engineers (technical expertise and beyond)? We took a first step in addressing these gaps by interviewing 59 experienced engineers across 13 divisions at Microsoft, uncovering 53 attributes of great engineers. We explain the attributes and examine how the most salient of these impact projects and teams. We discuss implications of this knowledge on research and the hiring and training of engineers.