I've been to many interviews in my lifetime, as the employer and employee. One of the recurring questions in almost all the interviews I've participated in has been: "What makes a good software engineer?"

This is an interesting question. I've listened to many engineers tell me what they think is important, and the answers are remarkably consistent. It's almost as if they've read the same book, and are just spewing out what they've read. Good communication skills, good problem solving skills, able to write and debug code.