When you're invested in the success of the business above all else, and you make that known, you'll carve out a position where you're valued.
Not because you went on a "carving out your importance" mission, but because your energy goes into your work, and the details and care for the long term business objectives. Also... you can then enjoy yourself more, which opens creativity which opens innovation. Sometimes this might mean disagreeing with managers or working on stuff nobody really knows you're working on right now.
> "So if you want to get something technical done in a tech company, you ought to wait for the appropriate wave"
No. That doesn't work. You have to start building it. Don't wait.
You still need to:
1. Be good at what you do.
2. Be good at politics/communication when that's needed.
3. Be in an organization that has good people and also cares. There are organizations where there's just a complete disconnect from the business for various reasons. Dysfunctional.
Picking your battles;
Negotiate rather than fight;
Be better at analytics and research than anyone else. So you have the data to measure or predict success about a particular feature or direction.
Armed with your data, you must carefully communicate findings without shaming others.
But I still did the same thing the article and commenters suggested. I stayed strictly aligned with what the CTO wanted and just from that, I was able to guide the entire technical architecture of the company for two years even though I had no hands on experience with AWS.
Let’s not be fooled though. My next job after that startup that had 60 people was at the second largest employer in the US - AWS working in the consulting division (AWS Professional Services).
It was an immediate 50% bump in pay. An even greater contrast is that an intern I mentored got a return offer at 22 in 2022 that was the same I made at 46 in 2020. They are now at 25 making slightly more than I’m making at a medium size third party consulting company working full time as a staff consultant.
Your principled stand is leaving a lot of money on the table.
At 51, I would rather get a daily anal probe with a cactus than ever work at any large company again and I have turned down a position that was going to be created for me at another large well known non technical company where a former coworker was a director and ignored overtures from GCP in their professional services department that would pay a lot more.
I also wouldn’t like the company I work at now with around 700 people if I weren’t brought in as a staff engineer where I have almost complete autonomy on how I lead my projects and the ear of the CxOs
But let’s not pretend the extra $75K to $100K+ I could be making isn’t worth playing politics. I’m just at a place in life where I can prioritize other things than money.
Also, at 51, I’ve learned a few things. Not to make your “career” at any company and to always be prepared to jump ship when the environment changes or the raises don’t keep up with the market. I’m now on my 10th job.
I would swear by this when I started working in IT, but 3y later I changed job and took a gig at a big corporation. It was eye opening and jaw dropping. Everything was lightyears ahead in terms of tech, management, money, investments in people, and much more compared to the small company. It geniuinely made me mad for not doing this sooner.
Of course there's a lot of variance among small companies (much moreso than large ones). But the one thing that all small companies have is people who can actually get shit done not matter what it requires. The amount of "not my lane" nonsense that occupies corporate life is both exhausting and boring. I understand why this exists for practical reasons, but it's no fun.
Conversely, if you're mediocre, there's nowhere to hide.
Or maybe instead of saying there aren't politics at small companies, it's more accurate to say that there are politics, but they're simple--everyone strives to make the (hopefully benevolent) dictator, I mean founder, happy. If your founder is awesome, life is good. If your founder is not awesome, well, everyone is going to have a bad time anyway.
The main divide I've seen between what makes people happy in one or the other style tech company is whether they really enjoy solving problems or doing their job. If you want to check in, do only what is technically required of you and get out, then big tech corp is for you. If you are mainly interested in finding solutions to problems and you are happy to employ whatever is necessary to do so, you'll have more enjoy small companies much more.