Forget ‘quiet quitting’ – ‘loud laborers’ are killing workplace morale

You’ll also need to be ready to move again once you get into the executive ranks. Typically true exec headhunters will become willing to talk to you at this point and you’ll have another significant comp rescope opportunity in your late 30s to mid 40s.

Yes, this is also a recurring topic. My approach to this as a manager is to give sort of an overview about the system so that people understand how it works in our local context.

It starts with "first, do you job and don't try to hide in case you make a mistake. But here is the people (mental list) that *need to* have visibility of your work and here are the main forums we need to get your work visible."

TBH, I don't think it is really within my power to change the system and make it fair. So if I can advocate for a better improve to people in my team, I just do that. If other managers are not acting strategically, well, that's their loss.

I've been successful in this way over the last many years.

It becomes clear that everyone understands their impact. If a non-technical person gets something that works they don’t have any way to know if it’s better or worse than anybody else’s work though.

A good manager should. A technical manager, doubly so, and if you're an engineer, your manager should be technical.

Of course you're ultimately your best cheerleader and hypeman, but your manager should be doing that job too, especially to other higher-ups.

It is a natural tendency for a lot of people. I know I tend to do it because I don’t like when my work has flaws, so I spend way too much time making sure everything is perfect before I dare showing something to others. It’s still something to overcome because being quiet in one’s corner is counter-productive in the long run.

> If you come up with a clever solution, you need to promote it. You don't have to "brag" but you do need to tell people that you e.g. came up with an optimization that makes the thing go faster and you probably need to show your manager a graph demonstrating the thing you did.

Exactly! It makes the manager happy because they feel they understood something and it makes you happy because you feel like the value you bring is recognised.

> If you think this is dumb, I don't blame you, but that is how things work.

It’s not dumb, it’s adapting to one’s environment. It’s hubris to think that all the other people around have the same priorities as you. They have other interests, other skills, other objectives, and they also have only 24 hours each day. When you spend time to engineer something, they don’t have the skills or the time to study it in detail, therefore they cannot grasp all the cleverness in it on their own.

That’s not because managers are stupid or MBAs or something. The same is true in a team of engineers. A single person is not able to keep track of everything their colleagues do. So the quiet worker doing their thing in their corner is also missing out. It’s just that they have other things to do. So if you want them to know how clever the thing you did is, just tell them. People respond quite well if you show them something interesting (though, as you say, bragging is bad and is usually seen as a problem, not a sign of brilliance).

The key is to talk about the thing and how it solves whatever complicated problem was limiting, not about how bright you are for coming up with such a solution. It makes for interesting conversations as well, because the other people also have clever ideas every now and then, and that way you can hear about them. Because yourself are not necessarily aware of how brilliant your colleagues are if they never talk about what they do.

> If you want to fight this reality to some small extent, you can work hard to recognize your coworkers' achievements and clever solutions and promote them by word of mouth, to your manager, etc. If everybody did this then people wouldn't need to self-promote so much.

Yes! Another consequence is that this way there is more communication and more cross-pollination, and everyone wins.

In reality, there is a distribution of talent among senior managers, and although they often do not seem to be the geniuses they are supposed to be, they are often better than the caricature that is made of them (except for my boss, who is pretty bad).

It follows that, in my experience and that of many others, the 10x engineer is not assigned a 10x higher job, but is more likely (we must always remember statistical distributions) to be assigned a job that has a greater impact for the organization or company.

Make sure your contributions are recorded. Even better is for you to volunteer to take notes and email them to everyone after any meeting or discussion of consequence.

I am not motivated to work by wealth, and am certainly not going to engage in more than the bare minimum of self-promotion (which has in no way hurt my career).

But the only companies I've worked for where I've been a "true believer" have been the companies I've started.

I am motivated by the work itself and the working conditions.

I don't brag about myself, in large part because I find it so annoying when others do. I am an example of how doing that, at least in the right sorts of companies, is not necessary. Further, it can be actively damaging as it decreases the willingness of others to work with you.