
Ask HN: How to play the politics game at your company? - jehlakj
Inspired by the quitting google thread, I was curious how a new programmer can excel at a company. That is, on paper.<p>How can we better play by the rules and earn raises instead of having to switch companies?
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zer00eyz
There are rules.

1\. Never ever, ever shit talk your coworkers - if you have something to say
to someone, say it to their face, or don't say it at all.

2\. Do NOT contribute to the grapevine, only take from it - be a good listener
and you will hear all the gossip, news and complaints.

3\. Be social - take time to go out to coffee, drinks, lunch with any and
every one you can. This goes double for people in other departments.
Accountants are a wellspring of useful information and having them as friends
is only to your benefit.

4\. Know the difference between what is a priority (everything) and what is
important. The latter is what makes your team/boss look good. All boats rise
with the tide.

5\. Don't be afraid to question a decision that you think is terrible BUT make
it a question, and have facts and data to back it up...

6\. Your only as good as your last success. Your own failures can be
successes, if you screw something up OWN it and FIX IT.

7\. Watch out for people who put politics before their own job. If you HAVE to
interact with these types of people getting everything in writing is to your
benefit. If your given verbal instructions then follow up with an email that
documents the item/issue/instruction - Lines like "I'll get started right away
on XXX as soon as ... be creative, theres always a bottleneck, or roadblock
you can call out or as for a link to.

------
muzani
Be valuable to your team. Make everyone's life a little easier.

Try to sneak into an irreplaceable position, where you can ask for whatever
salary you want. Tech is full of these opportunities. As a junior, you are
often given unsexy, boring stuff that nobody wants to handle. That's a good
place to get lots of leverage.

Be friends with everyone, especially other departments further away. Social
ties are a mesh, and the more mutual friends you have with, say, a boss, the
higher everyone's opinion of you. If three of someone's friends like you,
chances are they'll think well of you too.

Learn to listen well. Listening is something that needs to be learned. This is
the easiest way to make friends. It also unlocks most leverage. You'll learn
surprising things. Like a subordinate might care more about being in the same
department as a cute intern rather than being promoted and getting more pay.

My core rule when dealing with politics is just to know yourself and know your
counterparts. Everything else is easy once you do.

~~~
noobhacker
How do I get leverage out of "unsexy, boring stuff"? Here are some scenarios
that I'd like advice on:

\- In an analytics role, the junior is assigned the data cleaning work. It's
boring, it requires a lot of dirty, ungeneralizable work. And they don't get
to do the modeling work and delivering insights that appear more impressive.

\- A junior SWE is assigned to maintain some in-house software. They squash
bugs, but don't get to design new products or present on new launches.

"Everyone agrees" that data cleaning / maintenance is important, but there's
hardly visible credit for this kind of work. What's the best way to gain
leverage here?

~~~
webmaven
_> [data cleaning is] boring, it requires a lot of dirty, ungeneralizable
work._

How sure are you that it really is ungeneralizable? Just because it appears
that way at first glance doesn't mean you won't find opportunities for
automation once you understand the domain and the typical dirt in the data
better than anyone else (note: 'dirt' can often be modelled).

And well, once you're the developer and maintainer of the data-cleaning system
that has become the company's competitive advantage...

Similarly, bug-squashing is often an opportunity to really understand some
important but unglamorous system (eg. payments, or authentication), as
managers will notice that bugs in system X are fixed much faster and more
thoroughly when assigned to jr. developer Y, and this often leads to becoming
the go-to person for implementing new features in that system.

------
alexashka
The question worth asking is - how do you excel... at life...

That is the only career question worth asking.

You've placed constraints on it, such as 'new programmer', 'play by the
rules', 'earn raises'.

How do you know excelling at life means playing by the rules? How do you know
more money means a better life? How do you know you don't want to switch
companies?

You don't. The way to find out is to just live your life, and not lose sight
of what matters - excelling, at life, by rules YOU set. And they won't be the
same rules, they'll change as you grow.

How do you set rules by the way? By following your gut, heart, and intuition,
and sometimes what other people say. You so far have it backwards, where what
others have said has left no space for following your own instincts, hence the
question you're asking.

The biggest regret you can have - is living out somebody else's ideas and
life, even if you 'excel'.

------
lacker
A good manager will make it so that you don't have to worry about politics.
They will be able to inform you what projects are widely agreed to be
impactful. Then you can focus on performing well technically on those projects
and get promoted.

Your manager should be able to helpfully answer direct questions like, "What
do I have to do to get promoted?" If your manager doesn't have a good answer,
and you care about getting promoted, you should find a new manager.

Once you become more experienced at the company, you may not need your
manager's help at this as much. You'll develop connections within the company
and be able to gather widespread support for your projects directly.

------
cuchoi
Office politics change a lot depending on the company.

In general, do not work on what you think it is important. Work on what the
management think it is important. If you don't understand why do they think
something it is important, ask them.

It is okay to disagree with them, but try to frame it as a proposal and see
how much they follow along with your idea. If they don't like it, then do not
pursue that project. The job of upper-management is to set priorities.

------
paulcole
Since you're asking this question, don't try to outmaneuver anyone in office
politics. You'll get eaten for lunch.

But since you asked, develop leverage and pick your battles.

It's fine to use a job offer from another company to get a promotion but don't
expect it to keep working again and again.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Clarifying/amplifying on this:

You can't totally ignore politics. Those who don't do politics will still have
politics done to them.

But don't try to "win" via politics. First, it's not your skill set, and it is
other peoples' skill set. If you go head to head in politics with them,
they'll wipe the floor with you.

Second, who do you want to be? A developer? Or a politician? I absolutely do
not want to be a politician.

So do as little politics as possible. And when you do it, do it for defensive
purposes - to keep yourself from being the victim of politics.

------
tboyd47
Switching companies _is_ how you earn yourself a raise.

~~~
GFischer
You can sometimes get a raise in the same company, but it is usually harder.

------
tomtimtall
At my old company the key to advancing was: suck at you job, make big failing
projects addressing the wrong issues and lead to bigger longer projects
addressing the same issue until you get an entire department assigned to you
adressig that issue. Also piss off the people in other departments work
against the best intention of the company get in fights with department heads
and experts and steal the work and ideas of others.

Not surprisingly a lot of talent fled that company, me included.

------
SirLJ
You'll have to build reputation, which takes time.

Be there for your team and your boss, so you can expect the same in return.

Be blunt and don't sugar coat it with everyone, so as your time/reputation
grows inside the company, people will know about you... essentially you would
want your reputation to precedes you... this will help you avoid a lot of
politics and BS...

------
123212321
Work hard to justify the decisions of senior management. Outright refuse bad
and low priority work

Discredit other teams through data analysis

------
shortoncash
Hey OP, thanks for asking this question. I read Ask HN regularly and I thought
reading some of these responses was beneficial. Now I just need to figure out
how to internalize the behaviors. :-)

------
alok-g
1\. Think Big. I have seen many people who aimed higher from the beginning and
did manage their way up (e.g., becoming a VP in just ten years, that too in a
large company).

2\. People skills is a must for the above. You should be thinking of people or
organizational challenges all the time, or you'll miss the mindset to rise
significantly up.

3\. Many people complain about their team leads, managers or senior leaders.
This usually happens because these senior are working at a higher level of
responsibility and ambiguity than you are. You should rather be thinking what
would you have done if you were in their position. Understand the challenges
they have, by directly asking if needed. This will not only help develop your
relationship with them, but also position you to develop the skills needed
faster, without yet being in the position of responsibility that they are in!

4\. There is a lot of entropy in any team/organization, and unfortunately also
a lot of people who are increasing it. Be the one who reduces the risks and
brings order to the chaos, whose judgment can be trusted. Keep in mind for
this that the real challenges are often not on technology side (in other
words, if you think technology challenges are more critical, you are perhaps
missing the big picture).

5\. Try to become irreplaceable for the team/company in your project and
beyond. In my experience, this will not come in your way as [6] suggests. You
must however not get limited to the tools and technologies specific to the
company, or else your market value will suffer within a few years.

6\. Never say (or even feel) anything bad about anyone ever, keeping Hanlon's
razor in mind [1]. But then, how do you deal with the stupidity? Well,
<b>their stupidity is your opportunity</b>. (I created this out of Jeff Bezos'
famous quote, "Your margin is my opportunity." [4])

7\. Do not let yourself be masked from political issues around. A good manager
would aim to mask you [5], but that can curb your growth since you won't
develop the skills needed to master and survive corporate politics while being
masked.

8\. There are books available today that teach you corporate politics [2-3],
showing how easy it is for anyone to do it, and how difficult it is to
counter. Reading these books should be a required reading for anyone aiming to
go significantly high. And trust me, it's better to learn this from books or
from other people's experience than learning this stuff the hard way. (The
latter would be painful for one, and second, you may never actually learn.) I
have read [2] and felt that I should have read it earlier.

9\. Ask questions whenever you do not understand something or if your own
thoughts do not align with the decisions being made. Of course, be polite in
this (e.g., "I was wondering if option X also has been considered" instead of
"why are we not going for option X"). People around would be happy to explain
to you while also developing trust in you, and often would take the suggestion
if it will actually reduce their mental burden. The sooner the better in
asking questions.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor)

[2]
[https://www.amazon.com/dp/0743262549/](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0743262549/)

[3]
[https://www.amazon.com/dp/0312332181/](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0312332181/)

[4] [https://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/7-jeff-bezos-quotes-
tha...](https://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/7-jeff-bezos-quotes-that-will-
make-you-rethink-success.html)

[5]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16488447](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16488447)

[6]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16489904](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16489904)

