How I influence tech company politics as a staff software engineer

Summary

Many software engineers are fatalistic about company politics. They believe that it’s pointless to get involved, because: Technical decisions are often made for completely selfish reasons that cannot be influenced by a well-meaning engineer Powerful stakeholders are typically so stupid and dysfunctional that it’s effectively impossible for you to identify their needs and deliver solutions to them The political game being played depends on private information that software engineers do not have, so any attempt to get involved will result in just blundering around Managers and executives spend most of their time playing politics, while engineers spend most of their time doing engineering, so engineers are at a serious political disadvantage before they even start The general idea here is that software engineers are simply not equipped to play the game at the same level as real political operators. This is true! It would be a terrible mistake for a software engineer to think that you ought to start scheming and plotting like you’re in Game of Thrones. Your schemes will be immediately uncovered and repurposed to your disadvantage and other people’s gain. Scheming takes practice and power, and neither of those things are available to software engineers. It is simply a fact that software engineers are tools in the political game being played at large companies, not players in their own right. However, there are many ways to get involved in politics without scheming. The easiest way is to actively work to make a high-profile project successful. This is more or less what you ought to be doing anyway, just as part of your ordinary job. If your company is heavily investing in some new project - these days, likely an AI project - using your engineering skill to make it successful is a politically advantageous move for whatever VP or executive is spearheading that project. In return, you’ll get the rewards that executives can give at tech companies: bonuses, help with promotion...