[AnEro]

As the 'sarah' for an org I'm golden handcuffed to, avoid becoming the 'sarah' at all costs it will cost you so much in your career. I am a founding engineer self-taught from it/software security to full stack dev, and I pushed so we aimed to higher better engineers than myself. When they came in it was a full rewrite, a new abstraction and going down the same paths I learned the hard way not to go down. I was pushed out of enforcing hard-earned business logic, and we are still paying for it. Everywhere from not accepting the inherent complexity of the problem and over simplifying software to trying to get same features we had from 3 years ago. This then has made me the scapegoat for why the new engineers made xyz decision, and was the one in charge of fixing the shortcuts, bugs and workarounds. I have received promotions for this to be in charge of the veterans that didn't listen to me, whom still don't until it's a fire drill. Joke among colleges is I was the first 'agent' our company had, endless work, just enough authority to do current task, not enough respect/authority to solve the symptom. I understand this is also a failure of my office politics and am improving, however its hard to balance blunt productivity, slow careful positioning and letting people struggle with items I don't recommend until circle back.

[ASalazarMX]

> founding engineer self-taught

This is such a toxic combination, becuse it requires significant people skills to get out of the "the kid who learned everything here and is grateful for it" and get proper respect as a professional. At some point the only option is changing jobs. I've seen companies matching your offer, finally realizing you actually have value in the market, but don't count on that, don't bluff.

I too ended up as the "go to guy", partly because I had a lot of enthusiamsm for my new job, and partly because the talent pool there wasn't very deep (or maybe they were smarter than me). It's fulfilling until it becomes unrewarding, I had to move on after almost 5 years. Still did consulting for them ocassionally for a couple more years.

[simskij]

That feels more familiar than I'd care to admit - definitely been there, done that. I think what most fail to realize is that it eventually turns into a ball and chain, decreasing your mobility within the organization. So the consequences of running an org on tribal knowledge and Sarahs is far worse, and direct, than that it won't work very well with agents.

[mh2266]

I am Sarah, and it has been incredibly profitable for me: good ratings, promotions up to director-level IC, extra retention RSU grants.

If you have golden handcuffs and multiple promotions out of being Sarah, what is it costing you?

[simskij]

Author here.

That sounds exhausting to say the least.

It’s very easy to turn into the Sarah - or the Brent if you prefer the Phoenix Project analogy. As exciting as it might initially be to be the go-to person, it’s also, as you so elegantly put it, “endless work, just enough authority to do current task, not enough respect/authority to solve the symptom”.

Best wishes! I hope you manage to turn it around.

[AnEro]

Much appreciated! Thanks for the blog around ADR, I didn't know there was a full ecosystem for the approach and the AI tie in will help me sell the process