[wfjackson3]

I agree with this. I want to add a product perspective here too. If your product partner routinely tries to understand your suggestions and translate them into the things that matter to themselves and the broader organization, that's a good partner.

And on the subject of things that are good to learn early in your career, everyone should know that every business is barely good enough for what it is. If it was materially better at something else that mattered, for example to its market or its economics, it would be a different business. For profit businesses are pretty effective equilibrium finding entities. I used to get really frustrated that people didn't care about improving things that I wanted to improve, until I realized that in most instances those things wouldn't really change any outcome in the business. In the cases where it would really change the business outcome, I realized the company couldn't prioritize effectively.