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My issue isn’t so much with having to influence people, but being in a situation where you’re always struggling against other people to do so, constantly being

My issue isn’t so much with having to influence people, but being in a situation where you’re always struggling against other people to do so, constantly being worried that a point you make in one channel will be repeated by someone else without attribution in another channel that’s more visible to people with more power, or worrying about someone who has more ‘juice’ with a manager talking down your work, when that manager doesn’t have the expertise to judge for themselves, etc. I’ve had work experiences that were completely free of this sort of thing, but at small to medium-size startups. My current employer, not so much. You’re right, of course, that I need to be assessing specific opportunities. I guess I’m just trying to see if there are any broad difference between public tech companies.

closeparen 8y ago
Any group of engineers is going to put up a fight if someone comes in trying to do things the "wrong" way. You want to find the tribe with the same standards and design aesthetics as your own, and that depends on what your opinions are. Tribes like this tend to run on reputation, trust, and referral. Which prior coworkers have you tended to agree with? Chances are there's a community out there of like-minded individuals, and you can tap into it by getting referred to a company staffed by then, or by referring known members to infect your own organization. Teams can have cultures of being more or less concerned about ladder-climbing, performance reviews, management's favor, etc. It's been my experience that the level of concern is inversely proportional to enjoyment of the work itself; the best defense against office politics is the classic triad of autonomy, mastery, and purpose. But even a low-politics-emphasis team culture is not going to save you from worrying about these things if you choose to.
Melchizedek 8y ago
Perhaps it's a good sign if a company allows/encourages remote work. Since politics is often 'personal', a more impersonal setting would reduce the opportunities of people who like to play politics instead of working. It also makes it harder to hide incompetence, and since the politics players are often at least semi-incompetent in my experience, that would also work against them.

closeparen 8y ago

Any group of engineers is going to put up a fight if someone comes in trying to do things the "wrong" way. You want to find the tribe with the same standards and design aesthetics as your own, and that depends on what your opinions are. Tribes like this tend to run on reputation, trust, and referral. Which prior coworkers have you tended to agree with? Chances are there's a community out there of like-minded individuals, and you can tap into it by getting referred to a company staffed by then, or by referring known members to infect your own organization. Teams can have cultures of being more or less concerned about ladder-climbing, performance reviews, management's favor, etc. It's been my experience that the level of concern is inversely proportional to enjoyment of the work itself; the best defense against office politics is the classic triad of autonomy, mastery, and purpose. But even a low-politics-emphasis team culture is not going to save you from worrying about these things if you choose to.

Melchizedek 8y ago

Perhaps it's a good sign if a company allows/encourages remote work. Since politics is often 'personal', a more impersonal setting would reduce the opportunities of people who like to play politics instead of working. It also makes it harder to hide incompetence, and since the politics players are often at least semi-incompetent in my experience, that would also work against them.