Politics is inescapable. Software engineers can't live outside of them. Whether these are the team politics, org politics, etc.

I don't think engineers are universality bad/good at politics. It's just like anything else, takes practice.

Yeah, this approach largely works.

Where is the influence?

I think this is largely practical advice if you want to influence a tech company at all costs. That is -- to have multiple projects lined for each executive goal that you can singlehandedly deliver on to thunderous applause.

That said, it's often easier said than done. We've all worked at places where projects were canceled 3 months in due to all sorts of reasons (e.g. security breach changes all priorities, nobody cares about your database change now).

So I do think there comes a point where an engineer asks themselves -- "How many projects do I have to prepare, how many stakeholders do I have to convince, how many wins do I need before I see tangible benefits commensurate with my investment?" What if I just let the executives set the course and provide my insight if asked, and still get 90% of the pay.

Ultimately this is a guide to work successfully within a dysfunctional system, but nonetheless great advice for that.

Man, I must not have worked at dysfunctional enough companies. I can't relate to the opening remarks in this article at all. I'm used to really open communication from the top down and, even when we build in a direction I disagree with, we've discussed things enough that I'm at least interested in seeing why someone else I consider intelligent sees the world so differently. Perhaps it has to do with only working for companies founded by engineers rather than product/marketing? I'm not really sure.

It seems like this post can be summarized as follows:

1. If your manager has something in particular they want you to do, you should do it.

2. If your manager doesn't have something in particular they want you to do, you should figure out what they will want you to do in the future, and make any necessary preparations so that it will be doable when they want it.

I'd say it's good advice. The only thing I would add is that managers and leadership are sometimes happy to be given something different than what they asked for, so long as it's still what they wanted at a higher level. This is risky, but success can be a fast track to respect and autonomy.

This is usually in big corps, so if you like working in these hellholes, then proceed with all these shenanigans. I worked there before and it's not really good for engineering, let alone engineers' mindset, because in addition to the actual technical stress, now you have to deal with all this bs from people who do nothing all day but these games. Small companies are the best for me, and I remember one time in a small company they hired a manager from a corp. In a year, he managed to fuck up everything, 4 engineers left including myself, and turned the work culture into rules and policies instead of adults working with each other towards a common goal.

> The important thing is to have a detailed, effective program of work ready to go for whatever the flavor of the month is.

This is basically my theory of how things get done in Washington. There's no grand plan most of the time, just an army of operatives ready with a slide deck to pitch when the conditions for an idea present themselves.

Based lol

Understand what your boss's boss cares about and make sure your work can described in relation to those goals or concerns.

One of my favorite quotes: “ Only a crisis—actual or perceived—produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes politically inevitable.” - Milton Friedman

I’ve found writing 1 pagers and technical documents that I can circulate, and then re-reference when there is a crisis is the way to have my ideas floating around at the time. I’ve had some success driving the architecture I want iteratively, slowly progressing towards my goals by building consensus but I’ve also been owned by VPs and directors that are much better at politics than I am. Having the library of 1 pagers, sending them around so they are latently in the air, and waiting for the impetus to execute on that idea has been much more successful.

The biggest political capital that you can build up is your technical understanding & skills. But they are only useful insofar as you put them into the context of the broader company strategy. Giving appropriate advice, and delivering, in the interest of the company, will give you capital, i.e., people listening to you & relying on you, trusting you, which gives you power to steer. Preparing contingency plans & pitching then, then executing them, is the best way.

IMO the best you can do:

- Ship often to prod (don’t do theoretical work).

- Ship wins (as defined by generally acceptable metrics.)

- Have someone in management or a PM who is good at selling your wins

Even here, though, you will run into problems. There is always a new VP or leader looking to make an impact. Because you maintain the current systems your team is engaging in WrongThink and new VP has shiny new RightThink (AI, etc). As soon as your code hits prod you have “legacy” code.

New VP can make promises of future, theoretical riches that you can’t compete with, as you maintain the boring, current reality. Reality is not sexy or interesting. You’re in the old guard now.

A lot simply boils down to patronage. Making your higher up VP look successful and being in a position to move with them to their new company.

glad to see someone being real and not parroting infuriating "politics is just learning how to interact with other humans narrative" .

politics at work isn't any different than any other politics. Its not a spl breed of politics thats more pure and noble.

succeeding at workplace politics requires the same skills of identifying who to suck up to, who to eliminate and who can be trampled over to get where you want.