What you say makes total sense. But for some personal reasons the social part of the job has always been my weak side and I'm just not interested in playing that game.

I've had fairly positive successes in the past when being a contractor. I feel like it's easier for me to have legitimacy and influence over the project that I'm doing this way.

> Lastly, make sure whatever it is you work on truly matters to the business, and understand how it ties back to the business and your customers. It can be fun (or necessary at times) to be off in the weeds on something that is technically interesting, but really unimportant to the bottom line and ultimately to advancing your career.

That's something I have also learnt from experience, and I am more often than not the one pushing for boring tech against the last fancy trends. But I have difficulties with the fact that focusing on the business means most of the time being the fastest possible, to the point that businesses would rather save 2 hours of implementation time now, even if it costs weeks of technical debt down the road.