Do you ever get tired of playing this “visibility,” “impact,” “promo politics” game and think, “I came into this industry because I like computers, not… whatever this is”?
I've been all the way up to CTO in a mid-size company (650ish people), and I've felt like this in every role I've had at different times. Some places more than others. Where I was CTO wasn't too bad but that came at the cost of me not touching code at the company for several years because, at that level, and in the kind of company it was, you just really can't - not without finding yourself becoming a blocker anyway.
But I've worked in a couple of larger organisations - one of them, probably 90k employees, although it wasn't a tech company - and these issues are rife there as well. To some extent, I think it's just big company behaviour, not specific only to big tech companies.
Yeah. I’m not saying software work needs to happen in a silo, but man, the politics at large companies - where a certain group of people are constantly trying to get "ahead" of everyone else by yapping and backstabbing - get really tiring after a few years.
Yeah, completely exhausting. I get quickly worn out by environments where performatism (if that's a word) is too highly valued.
For me, I tend to work at my best when I've got a clear remit, and space to operate freely within that remit with my team without having to constantly seek approval and validation.
Whereas the need to perform/show off/be visible in order to deal with every tiny issue - which I've absolutely seen in one or two organisations - is just... no. No. That might work for some people but it is absolutely no way to get the best out of me.
At most organizational sizes, the hard problems are that of coordinating people and not software. It’s a hard decision, but ultimately if you want to scale the size of your impact - you have to make these tradeoffs.
Some folks want to scale impact. Some want to be bespoke crafters. Both are okay, you just have to accept they are mutually exclusive.
