[throw3823423]

There's a little more to it: Make sure your manager, and maybe even your manager's manager, likes you. If your manager doesn't like you, change teams. If your manager's manager doesn't like your manager, you should also change teams.

The unfortunate reality of those high growth orgs is precisely that the growth leads to a lot of new managers, and as we all probably know by now, a new manager is a bad manager. Since they have no idea of what they are doing, having the best relationship with them as possible is the only thing that matters.

I've seen the best ICs, and the most effective managers, end up quitting/getting PIPed due to politics. I've seen low performance being rewarded by teams with good bonuses and no deliverable objectives in 2 years, and promotions before ever shipping anything. My evaluation of my performance, and resulting reviews and raises, have minimal correlation: But they absolutely correlate on how much my manager liked me. The more I've focused on this, the better the rewards, the product be damned.

This is extra-true in those rocket ship companies, precisely because things for the company are likely to go well regardless of short term performance: Only major failures, (like what Raylene describes in the article as avoiding being critical) can get you in trouble for actual company impact. In those cases your best bet is to be the firefighter who is also an arsonist, and find ways to sell your solutions to problems you yourself caused... but that involves far too much work.

[weeblewobble]

Very good wisdom here. Especially the part about your manager’s manager liking your manager. I’ve always been happiest working for managers that were politically savvy and had “juice”.

If your manager is on the precipice of being fired you’re in a bad spot. This is also true of PMs. At mega corps you can and should change teams but in a rocket ship company there probably are no processes for that and even bringing it up is risky.

I don’t really have any advice here other than to be aware of it. My last job I got hired on to work under a guy with a lot of juice but then six months later he got promoted and I ended up with a rookie manager. Maybe I should have made a stink back then

[filoleg]

> I’ve always been happiest working for managers that were politically savvy and had “juice”.

Never even considered that until this moment. But now that I am thinking in retrospect about the previous teams I worked on, it rings 100% true. Even when the manager's manager wasn't super into the manager, as long as the manager was savvy and had "juice", it was always enjoyable work, and things (such as actual progress on deliverables, good decisions, etc.) always happened. I just could never pinpoint until now why those specific times felt the best.

Ironically, the only time I had an absolutely incompetent manager and a pretty savvy and great manager's manager, it was awful. The only saving grace was that the manager's manager eventually moved the manager into a different role in a different part of the org after an explosive argument. But that stretch was probably the most standstill and stagnated period of my career.

[lioeters]

> be the firefighter who is also an arsonist

I'm afraid this describes the majority of busy work in many industries including so-called software engineering. It's the most impressive Rube Goldberg machine of global proportions, where the major time-consuming problems are often self-inflicted, intricately constructed to seem like a solution but is actually a generator of problems, which conveniently sustain the careers of countless managers, hapless subordinates, and the economy involving the industry.

> The more I've focused on this, the better the rewards, the product be damned.

That's something I'm learning, is that it's not enough or even as important to be technically excellent. What matters is how one adapts and fits into the social dynamics and politics within the organization.

[shrikant]

> Make sure your manager, and maybe even your manager's manager, likes you.

..and sometimes due to sheer shitty luck, even this doesn't work. Like in my most recent job, where me, my manager, and his manager were all laid off (oh sorry, "made redundant") from a profitable company because "business restructuring".

[laboratorymice]

This would be good advice, if not for the fact that that approach essentially means you become just another politician. Being _aware_ of office politics is important; _focusing_ on it means you're a politician. Just focus on doing the best job you can, and if that's not what's rewarded at your place of work, leave.