But understand the ecosystem. People make promises that arent entirely dependent on them to be able to deliver

Definitely! It's been that way everywhere I've ever worked. Unless you are churning out code at maximum speed then it's only a matter of time before you get fired.

I've found that most of that autonomy comes with trust, and that trust gets unlocked via good relationships, and good relationships get unlocked by a history of good communication.

You are 100% correct that every person has agency, the trick is to get yourself into a social dynamic where it is acceptable to assert it.

Early career pick learning and exposure to different technologies, processes, and company organizations.

That being said, this job market is pretty bad for the youngins so unless you are top 1% of noobs I would say focusing on stability and learning would be my north stars in the next 3 years.

Most people either want hypergrowth idiocy or to be bought by the people doing hypergrowth idiocy.

Setting consistent expectations means you can plan, you can actually reasonably budget, you can have predictability in your business dealings - if you are trying to run a good business these are all real features instead of "puts out more code that might or might not make us money, but at least we were pulling all nighters and adding perceived meaning to our lives!"