[g5095]

Some years ago I was one of the first 5 engineers at what became a semi-unicorn, in 5 years we spent close to 1bn before a sale to tencent.

In the first 12 months I built a dozen microservices, each which eventually had a team supporting them. As the team grew I and one other guy were the 'glue' that kept much of the platform working, we knew how things went together, and by the time the Eng team hit 200+ staff we were indispensable.

After year 2 however, as several of our peers from the beginning moved into team management roles (something I prefer not to do), we noticed we were 'too important' to promote, or to allow to move, or to take off 2nd lvl on-call (at all).

What started with us being the architects of the system turned into us being the 'glue' that kept a massive multi-country eng team operating, which eventually turned into being boxed into a shitty support role rather than promoted, watching people vastly less qualified get moved ahead of us.

Eventually I just quit and moved into a tech lead role at a startup for something different. I feel like this is a trap for IC roles, don't be so helpful as glue that you 'set' into an indispensable position.