It's mostly breaking down problems, having a general curiosity on how things work and being able to read documentation. The only real difference between an electrician and a programmer is the context of how they apply those skills.
Everything is about will + tools + problem solving skills. From building a house to fixing a bicycle, building a shelf, fixing an old SLR, &c. I'd even argue that building/fixing material things is more rewarding than programming in general.
The only difference is that current society chose to reward average developers much more than average workers in other industries (good pay, flexible working hours, free snack, job security, &c.). But to me the average developer is not more important than the average trashman or electrician, quite the opposite.
A lot of tech workers are not much more than assembly line workers from back in days, spitting out barely maintainable code found on stack overflow, using tools they understand only on a superficial level (framework, DBs, &c.).
Again, familiarity is not knowledge. We have to stop romanticising our profession as if it was some kind of holy grail, for most people it's just a (good) way to bring money home. Most developers are not revolutionising anything, most are not working on anything meaningful, most are easily replaceable, most don't care that much about what they do, just like everywhere else.