[valdiorn]

> I've rarely seen individual contributions able to be evaluated 'fairly' at any scale. Your skills may be top notch, but you were focused on a project that was killed after 10 months because.... budget cuts? Bad management? Your contribution to the company in that case can be seen as a net negative, but it's largely out of your control.

this is absolutely true. But everyone needs to decide for themselves if they want to work for a Google-esque company that does shit like that, or something smaller where you can have a material impact and your absence will be noticed and missed instantly.

When you join a company, you are making an informed bet. You're betting that you can find successful projects to work on within the company, that the budget won't be slashed, that your manager isn't a sociopath who only promotes his drinking buddies, that half the company won't get fired within 6 months, that it won't go bankrupt.

You won't always get it right, sometimes you just get dealt a bad hand, in which case; try again, don't sit tight for another 5 years hoping things will change; do something about it. Move projects and try again. Or find another job.