Know what you know, know what you don't know, and strive to move the latter into the former by asking questions. Someone unwilling to ask a question when they don't know something is a quick way to get me to fire you when that vanity runs into reality.
Stop trying to be perceived as important and focus on actually doing important things... the rest will sort itself out.
My biggest weakness/opportunity for growth is my unwillingness to ask for help/ask questions. This strategy is key to me trying to save face and it's a good way to learn more about my team's expertise.
> Why does rkt store container images differently from Docker? ... The answer I got was super super helpful
IMO you'd have gotten a satisfactory answer just by virtue of the fact that you're posing a question about a difference from a competitive software product. And in this case it's the market leader by far. Whenever someone poses a difference in behavior or performance/specifications between two similar/compatible software packages it very often inspires a lot of interest.
Aside: I think that Julia's blog posts or at least this one in particular is a great highlight of female participation in software development. Not that men don't post stuff like this on occasion. But it seems like the focus is often more content regarding technical matters than social ones.