Interesting take. Let's just say, one of these approaches sails through the promotion process, and one does not.
That's the thing. You don't get credit for those death by a thousand cuts queries that come with a universal X is the person with the answers rep.
None of my superior knew we had an office in Serbia either...let alone crediting me with "yes havoc is totally flooded but he helped serbia guy anyway".
Note that I'm talking general corporate here. Things may be different in a pure SWE eng context. My observation is strictly corporate life...may or may not extrapolate to SWE context.
You can only write so much code per day. If you can help 100 people be 10% more productive, you're leveraging your knowledge to help the whole company do 10x more than you could personally do. Congratulations!
"Without Havoc, project FooBar could not have happened"
But i'm seen as knowledgeable and my manager basically lets me completly alone doing my thing and gives me all benefits regarding salary he can to keep me.
That promotion is going to need a backfill and the organization may decide that it’s best to keep you in your place. Though it could lead to being able to negotiate a raise earlier than normal.