How I influence tech company politics as a staff software engineer • Hacker News Board

Re: How I influence tech company politics as a staff software engineer

#111

Post by anon84873628 » Sat, Oct 04, 2025, 7:35 PM UTC

procaryote wrote: post #77

I am sure these techniques are effective; but they're disingenious and self serving. If I see a staff engineer consistently trying to latch onto company initiatives and strategy goals to get funding for their pet project, I would like to fire them Why not try to actually solve the issues, and spend the politics budget on making sure people noticed? Even if you failed on the politics thing you've at least done somethi…

You're implying that the pet projects don't align to the goals. If the person is actually technically competent and has good ideas, then it won't be much of a stretch to justify why the project is relevant. Unless the new initiative is really a complete 180.

High level engineers should be looking ahead and predicting what projects will be needed based on technical weak spots or market trends.

Re: How I influence tech company politics as a staff software engineer

#112

Post by apwell23 » Sat, Oct 04, 2025, 7:36 PM UTC

SeanAnderson wrote: post #97

apwell23 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can't relate to the opening remarks in this article at all. i am guessing you never got promoted at work?

I was a staff engineer at my last employer

so am i but i got it through switching jobs. staff at 50ppl startup is just a junior. we had fresh grads with staff title.

Re: How I influence tech company politics as a staff software engineer

#113

Post by cactusplant7374 » Sat, Oct 04, 2025, 7:37 PM UTC

softwaredoug wrote: post #43

IMO the best you can do: - Ship often to prod (don’t do theoretical work). - Ship wins (as defined by generally acceptable metrics.) - Have someone in management or a PM who is good at selling your wins Even here, though, you will run into problems. There is always a new VP or leader looking to make an impact. Because you maintain the current systems your team is engaging in WrongThink and new VP has shiny new RightT…

I have never heard of theoretical work but I have heard of shipping every day. I don’t know how often you think is often. But in other places I know people are shipping every day.

It’s not ideal to ship often IMO. How could someone ship something substantial in one day? I work on projects that generate the company additional revenue and if those projects took one day to complete they would fire me because they would really only need a software engineer for four days of the year.

It’s a vanity metric.

Re: How I influence tech company politics as a staff software engineer

#114

Post by georgeburdell » Sat, Oct 04, 2025, 7:37 PM UTC

smallnix wrote: post #22

Trasmatta wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would rather not live my life with the sole purpose of people pleasing managers

In case you can share an alternate strategy to make a career in a large tech company, please do, would be interested.

I don’t know if it’s different, but I always carve out about a day a week to work on “skunkworks” projects that will benefit my team but that nobody has asked for yet. Then, when it does get asked for, I have a rough solution ready to go.

Re: How I influence tech company politics as a staff software engineer

#115

Post by kubav027 » Sat, Oct 04, 2025, 7:39 PM UTC

johnfn wrote: post #48

A lot of the frustration I typically hear in this camp is something like “well I shipped a huge refactor that cleaned up all the code, why does no one appreciate that?” One particular interaction that got me thinking was a few years ago listening to an acquaintance telling me how he spent months meticulously cleaning up the data pipeline and making it perfect, and how no one appreciated this work. Like, as an enginee…

Agreed. I have always thought about refactoring as developer responsibility. If it needs to be done do it while working on real feature and update deadlines accordingly. That way it is way easier to justify it because you talk about it only with technical people. In long run it makes code base way better. This results in easier maintenance and faster development of new features.

Re: How I influence tech company politics as a staff software engineer

#116

Post by quacked » Sat, Oct 04, 2025, 7:40 PM UTC

All good advice; I would also advise doing whatever is possible to be considered personally useful by very important executive staff that you like personally, even if it means doing jobs that are trivial but showy for non-technical users (like dashboards). Once they like and trust you, pitch them an actually good idea that they can take credit for at the right time.

Re: How I influence tech company politics as a staff software engineer

#117

Post by gtowey » Sat, Oct 04, 2025, 7:41 PM UTC

johnfn wrote: post #48

A lot of the frustration I typically hear in this camp is something like “well I shipped a huge refactor that cleaned up all the code, why does no one appreciate that?” One particular interaction that got me thinking was a few years ago listening to an acquaintance telling me how he spent months meticulously cleaning up the data pipeline and making it perfect, and how no one appreciated this work. Like, as an enginee…

Although I agree with this, I can also think of a counter example by analogy.

If you're on a construction project and you, say, spend a bunch of time inspecting and maintaining the safety systems so that you prevent any accidents that seriously injure or kill someone, it's an all-too-common problem that management doesn't think you've done anything and doesn't reward the effort.

It's a huge failure of management that they don't seem to have any concept of benefits unless it can be quantified as ROI. And in the case where it truly is a life or death situation, I consider it a moral failure as well.

In fact, this scenario isn't even a stretch of the imagination. This is Boeing, right now.

Re: How I influence tech company politics as a staff software engineer

#118

Post by fullstackwife » Sat, Oct 04, 2025, 7:42 PM UTC

johnfn wrote: post #48

A lot of the frustration I typically hear in this camp is something like “well I shipped a huge refactor that cleaned up all the code, why does no one appreciate that?” One particular interaction that got me thinking was a few years ago listening to an acquaintance telling me how he spent months meticulously cleaning up the data pipeline and making it perfect, and how no one appreciated this work. Like, as an enginee…

Think chefs at top restaurants for example: washing hands is something obvious, no need to get any customer infected with fecal bacteria in order to convince the restaurant management for investing into soap (hygiene takes time, you could serve additional customer!)

It is one of career progression milestones for a programmer when they can set a bar for their craftsmanship themselves. Successful SWE is someone who got hired at a team which does not require this kind of education. A team where this type of engineering hygiene is obvious like breathing.

Re: How I influence tech company politics as a staff software engineer

#119

Post by rafaelero » Sat, Oct 04, 2025, 7:43 PM UTC

exodust wrote: post #75

smallnix wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In case you can share an alternate strategy to make a career in a large tech company, please do, would be interested.

The alternate strategy is loyalty to "the business" rather than any particular person. 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 t…

This is a good strategy, imo. I was following it for almost a year and I was having a blast working in a startup. Then a new manager came along and started to dictate how things should be done without much input from the technical team. I kept fighting for what I thought was good for the product instead of aligning with him. In the end it was just too stressful (the manager was not only an idiot but also rude). I resigned, but I wouldn't have done any other way. I simply can't be made to do dumb things from uncurious people.

Re: How I influence tech company politics as a staff software engineer

#120

Post by bdangubic » Sat, Oct 04, 2025, 7:45 PM UTC

rustystump wrote: post #108

I think this article completely misses a critical point at staff level, being a force multiplier cross functionally. Api is slow, api wasnt being gzipd, good snack, give snack to other eng, find more snack. Oh look product doesnt have metric, get product the metric, now team look good because boss see what team do.

I build my entire career doing exactly this and after three decades in the industry, last one as a contractor, this is one of the very core things I do…