Being able to use the features of a debugger to understand a problem in a single run, as opposed to editing the code adding/removing print statements and (recompiling+)rerunning the program over and over again.
There's been some kind of macho attitude dispersed wherein it's uncool to use good tooling, so a lot of people don't even learn how to use debuggers properly.
- writing thoroughly tested code that works and has minimal defects - being someone who is pleasant to work with and who shows interest in others - digging down into requirements and rooting out the real problem that needs a solution, actually solving that problem - individual 'tech skills' are just things you can look up on Google or read about in a book. I suspect the above are more important.
Server Management might be one. People seem to waste a lot of money for fancy cloud solution they don't actually need. And you said a little bash can solve do many problems
Have a deep understanding of your tools. And for a programmer, the top three are: the editor, the os shell, and your programming language tooling.
The question is what you mean by highly valuable. The sad truth is that in most workplaces many just coast along doing only what's necessary to not get fired. In which case doing your job more efficiently might draw negative attention (tall poppy syndrome).
Having said that, I think that having a good (both broad and deep) knowledge of the database schemas is invaluable for almost any information related role. Also, being able to manipulate large text very quickly (with vi/sed/awk, let's say), is useful for production emergency debugging on servers.
I'd say carefully reading and understanding an error message before turning to google/ai
Knowing keyboard shortcuts of your chosen tools. Makes you so much faster and effective.
Using comm(1).
Vimium
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1. Giving a damn. The majority of people don’t care at all about the work being performed. You can easily distinguish yourself by simply caring about whatever it is you’re working on.
2. A natural consequence of the above: fully reading the documentation, be it man pages or the official technical reference for a given technology. It’s incredible how many people don’t read documentation. You can become one of the foremost experts in your company simply by reading the documentation from front to back. You will seem like a genius.