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Being visible

lethain.com

11–13 of 13 posts

Re: Being visible

#11
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes. a more accurate terminology would be "start being a politician". a shift I feel has occurred in the last 10y in the tech industry is that engineers themselves now are pulled into the political games if they want to continue their path beyond senior engineer roles. of course they aren't compelled to play politics. they could simply do their work well, but then they are likely to stay right where they are unless t…

Is the work “writing code” or is it “solving problems for the business”? If it’s the latter, communicating with others in the organization and advocating for change in some direction (aka “politics”) is part of the work.

Communicating and advocating change isn't politics. That's, as you say, part of the work. It happens all the time in healthy environments, and at all levels.

Politics is the art of communication and other tactic and strategies to gain (or influence those who have) power and control. Spending time embellishing accomplishments or simply making sure our own contributions get better visibility in order to access higher level of seniority is a common political tactic. No difference in merit or abilities or result, but effort to navigate and manipulate perceptions to get endorsement.

I could only deplore my entire life that national/state affairs are over taken by political moves rather than focus on change.It may be what attracted me to tech initially, as it seemed pretty immune to politics (it works or it doesn't). Yet, to my astonishment, politics is prevalent now, and it is even surprisingly difficult to not get objections when I dare to share that observation. At least thank you for sparing me whataboutism fallacious counter arguments.

TL-DR: communication isn't limited to being political.

Re: Being visible

#12

It's all so tiresome.

yes. a more accurate terminology would be "start being a politician". a shift I feel has occurred in the last 10y in the tech industry is that engineers themselves now are pulled into the political games if they want to continue their path beyond senior engineer roles. of course they aren't compelled to play politics. they could simply do their work well, but then they are likely to stay right where they are unless t…

> they could simply do their work well, but then they are likely to stay right where they are

What's wrong with that? Senior SDE is a great job; one of the best jobs humanity has ever come up with.

Re: Being visible

#13
Very important & underappreciated skill. Anyone who wants to climb needs to be part politician.

I once saw someone's Senior Manager promotion announcement/congrats from the department VP include the justification "I see you on a lot of e-mails" and little else. The guy was by all appearances merely noisy and feckless, but his career ramped up faster than did mine..so I guess - ultimately - not so feckless after all. Just min-maxing on the skills that resulted in advancement, and delegating the technical functions to others under and around him.

The same VP once told me over coffee, "[your location] is out of sight, out of mind-- and I mean that as a compliment." I've since managed to match my noisy colleague's career level, but first I had to learn to put on my public face and be visible in my work.

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