alt Hacker NewsAll good advice, I do disagree with one statement, however, mainly because I've seen this getting violated many times now:
> "Make sure that your role (as an engineer) in your company is in the most critical part of the company as you can handle."
The main problem here is how much the organization wants to think it can continue without those crucial parts, I've seen wild things go down in this regard, and I think we'll see a lot more in the near future with people hoping that AI will take care of it. And, on the flipside, and much to my surprise, how often the org can actually survive through such disaster cuts regardless, even though they'll end up at a worse place than they were at before, but the simple act of surviving it -- at that point -- is enough of a success to continue onwards.
The trick is to align with how corporate leadership defines "crucial" and not the way a "crank turner" defines it.
A crank turner thinks having a solid platform to stand on, a long crank arm and good lubrication is crucial. Because those things ARE crucial to crank turning.
Corporate management is looking at the machine the crank is attached to and thinking if that machine is going to produce the company's next quarter of growth.
The machine you crank could even be very profitable right now, but it's not where the company is going. Here's an easy to follow example from a smallish business:
https://youtu.be/9EMR2BVbG8Q