> Most software engineers in my experience have quite a lot of control, and a large component of growing in your career is learning to perceive the control that you have.

I've found that most of that autonomy comes with trust, and that trust gets unlocked via good relationships, and good relationships get unlocked by a history of good communication.

You are 100% correct that every person has agency, the trick is to get yourself into a social dynamic where it is acceptable to assert it.

Picking up Jira tickets could be a good way to accomplish the other goals. Suppose the ticket has a request from a user you don't chat with, it's a good time to go chat with them. Maybe you don't understand a part of the code base. Looking into a Jira ticket related to that part gives you a reason to read through it. If there's lots of tickets related to a subsystem, you might have a conversation with the product owner about what direction they're taking it. What you might not want to do is accept responsibility for the ticket until it's time to actually hammer it out.

You can say no thats too much work load, we're understaffed or its too tight of a timeliness for the results.

But understand the ecosystem. People make promises that arent entirely dependent on them to be able to deliver

> Are you working under a continuous and immediate threat of dismissal?

Definitely! It's been that way everywhere I've ever worked. Unless you are churning out code at maximum speed then it's only a matter of time before you get fired.

When customers that pay you a lot of money demand resolution to issues from your higher ups, you sort of have to. Especially true if their product is not working.

If you're lucky, the managers are clueless and you can easily pad your estimates by 2 to 3x and still appear incredibly productive. The trick is pacing yourself.