Giving and taking credit in big tech companies

"Succeeding at a tech company is largely about finding ways to get these people on your side. *The easiest way is to share your credit with them — and since you don’t know who exactly is in this group, you should be sharing your credit freely.* When you get feedback from other engineers, publicly thank them and mention them in your internal posts about the project. Find opportunities to ask for small favors, so you have an excuse to give other people credit. As best you can, make your individual projects at least partially group projects."

I believe that this serves two purposes:

1. It's the classic give-and-take. You scratch my back, etc., etc.

2. By giving credit out to other people, you create an association with them and whatever you're working on, so that when something inevitably goes wrong, the chain of involvement is so complicated that the fingers don't point squarely at you as the culprit.

I would be careful about being too lenient with giving out credit, however. In my personal experience, you want the people deciding who gets laid off to perceive you as someone who the company would go bankrupt if they even thought of letting you go (assuming bankruptcy is what they're trying to avoid).

And if you can't do that, the moment that economic turbulence hits, you have to start seeking out jobs from a place of strength (i.e., already having a job) before they lay you off and put you in a more desperate situation of having to seek a job while unemployed.