Yeah, I heavily bucked trends at my past 3 companies. I even got into plenty of disagreements with "principal engineers" at the end of their careers and those

Yeah, I heavily bucked trends at my past 3 companies. I even got into plenty of disagreements with "principal engineers" at the end of their careers and those engineers inevitably won the arguments. However, there were enough times where, once the team realized how problematic those solutions were, they backtracked and used my solutions. Every manager (as well as a few colleagues) has tried to get me to come back so far. A couple have recommended me to lead the tech side of their friend's (well-funded) startups long after I left. I wouldn't ever do it again though unless it was explicitly asked for. Stressing about getting fired in the initial weeks after getting hired (or during a boss change) just isn't worth it.