[cudgy]

I’ve known many people like this throughout my career, and I have seen the absolute opposite that you observed. These people are perfect candidates for management positions and their focus on office politics pays off handsomely. It’s not for me; might not be for you; but in reality these machiavellian tactics work if you wanna move up and get promoted in most large corporations.

[Aurornis]

The problem with getting ahead via Machiavellian tactics is that it only works at toxic companies.

Every good company I've worked for has been a bad place for politics and Machiavellian personalities.

So if you're using politics and Machiavellian tactics you may get ahead at some company, but then you're going to be surrounded by people who are also toxic and Machiavellian. Perhaps more so than you. Playing politics is often a short-term win at the expensive of the long-term.

[tartoran]

I think there are plenty of toxic companies around and your friend's gamble is just another strategy at succeeding in them. I sometimes too feel envious that I don't have the chops to do this job hopping game.

[roguecoder]

This is a great point!

The question isn't what strategy works at miserable companies that expect 60+ hour work weeks: it is what strategy will get me well-paid at a job I actually want.

[consteval]

> The problem with getting ahead via Machiavellian tactics is that it only works at toxic companies

Right, so... every company.

It may be hard to see or realize this, but the higher you go up the corporate ladder, it's all politics. Maybe at the individual contributor level this isn't the case and it's a meritocracy, but at C-Suites? All politics.

Don't believe me? Look into the most desirable and successful CEOs. They stay at a company for maybe 5-6 years, make a lot of money for the company but run it into the ground, and then just jump ship. Not only does this work, but these are the most desirable and the highest paid CEOs.

[scarface_74]

Welcome to every company that pays at top of band…

[nuancebydefault]

In my experience this tactic tends to work well for manager positions and backfire easily for technical positions.

If a manager screws things up they get pro or side moted. If an expert screws up and leaves technical debt behind, they just get a bad name.

[roguecoder]

The standards for managers are also so much lower than for engineers. Most of the time companies don't know how to judge how good a manager is at their job, much less how to interview people for those roles.

Instead, people rely on "how confident do they sound?" as a proxy for competence. It used to be that you could do that in development, but then we started having engineers write code during interviews.