become friends with ambitious sales people. The right salesman can inspire you to build something that he can sell. A good salesman tends to climb company ladde

become friends with ambitious sales people. The right salesman can inspire you to build something that he can sell. A good salesman tends to climb company ladders and have connections (like with VCs or with other executives). If you are friends with them and always bouncing off ideas and they land a VP of sales role somewhere they can pull you up. Or maybe you start a company with them. That's something I look for at a company is the sales culture. connections is like the most important thing for your career if you want to move above IC. My last company's CTO was super impressed when I asked to shadow a sales call to learn more about the customers... even if it was totally my plan all along to look different than other engineers, that's the game. Its not all about the other engineers you know.