[actusual]

> Very few people answer to no one and the rest get told what to do, all too often, throughout their lives.

I don't know about this. I run a team of ML engineers, and the ones who require being told what to do in order to be productive are simply worth less to the team. Sure, the scope of work is very specific (often limited to the teams purpose/mission), but autonomy is very much sought after and rewarded where I work. I simply don't want to work on a team where I, as the boss, am the sole person responsible for finding high leverage problems to solve, and have to then package the work then assign it.

[wai1234]

"the scope of work is very specific" and not under your control. Word.

[actusual]

I think there is a large gap between "go solve this large engineering problem, how is up to you" and "here are pre-groomed tickets, do not deviate from them". Do you disagree?