I find this insightful. Would you recommend anything in particular to get there? Other than staying frugal and being competent at your job?
- never work FAANG or any bullshit company like that
- look for companies that are small (up to 100 SWEs max, preferably 1/2 that) that have solid business (20+ years, profitable)
- when you get hired volunteer to fix every problem everyone else is running away from (there will be plenty). you will work hard in the beginning to understand the nuts and bolts of everything
- along with nuts and bolts of the technology / stack / ... learn the domain as much possible (so much so that you could get a job tomorrow in that domain, e.g. if your company is providing software for automation of say state&local courts then you need to learn everything there is to learn about state&local courts so much so that you could legit get a job as a court administrator)
"soon" you will be the first that:
- fixes all the issues
- puts out production fires
- is in every meeting
- ...
there are other ways to do this but this 100% is one of them...
I think your ideas are sound but they very generously assume competent and somewhat benevolent leadership. Something I have very rarely seen.
the leadership also does not have to be competent, you actually want slight incompetency because competent leaders would not allow project to heavily rely on one or handful of people.
You hiring? I got rejected twice from US companies with the explanation that they wanted to have me and the CTO pushed for having me but compliance does not want people from my region.
Replies like yours are wholesome and nice... but they also assume the only problem is in one's head. I am long past this. I just can't find good companies to work with in the last few years is the chief problem now.
learn to say "no", by which i mean "yes, but...". e.g. "can you look at this production issue?" --> "yes, but it is outside my comfort zone, so i will have to charge at least 8 extra hours of overtime towards that issue".
Shitty luck and all sometimes, of course. But really, most of the HN crows very quickly glances over how many toxic and terrible places to work at exist out there.