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At a lot of companies I've worked at, the engineers are empowered to decide on what to work at, it's not like they're 100% booked by PMs. Even if PMs, they can argue.

"Your manager tells you what to work on" isn't how big tech runs for the most part, in fact it's a bit sad to think that some people work like that

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It's how most people had me work. It's how most of my colleagues had to work too. Just doing what my manager tells me to work on is what is considered normal and expected in… 8 of the 10 or so places I've worked at.

The empowerment you speak of is but a faint dream in my town.

Interesting. That's different from companies I've worked at, where the sw developer usually asks for clarifications and can fight back if they have something else that they feel should be worked on that has a bigger ROI for the company. Companies I've worked at recently have been much more bottom up than top down

We can definitely ask for clarification. But fighting back is a grounds for being moved up the ax list. One workaround is trying stuff for free and present the results. Free labour for the employer, yay!

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