4 ms·

Being indispensable to a team or a manager in a large company can actually be self-destructive to your career. I realized this the hard way a long time ago when

Being indispensable to a team or a manager in a large company can actually be self-destructive to your career. I realized this the hard way a long time ago when my managers refused to let me move for a promotion because I was "indispensable" and "critical to the project". I've always made it a point to know who my back-ups are and have my supervisors assign them formally. In short, make it a point to share knowledge anyway. Keep a wiki, well written notes or documents, README.md's, whatever. Make it a point that people who are backing you up acknowledge and understand what you have and most importantly ask them to grow that body of knowledge.

plutonorm 5y ago
That would be an instant resignation as a matter of principle for me.
- CapitalistCartr 5y ago
  Principles are a luxury not afforded the poor masses.
  - kaba0 5y ago
    If you are indispensable, then surely you have quite a leverage.
    - teknopaul 5y ago
      That argument does not solve the problem. You will stay or go from one project that fails to the next like that. Better to have worked on projects that are still good on your CV.
    - pc86 5y ago
      No. Scenario: There is a project your boss is wholly responsible for. You, from a technical perspective, are absolutely indispensable to the success of said project. Maybe it's a small team, or everyone is overloaded, but you can draw a direct line between you quitting (or doing a bad job) and your boss getting called out or potentially fired. Your boss, however, is not indispensable to their boss, nor is this project indispensable to the larger department. You ask for your raise because of your leverage. Your boss might be worried and try to get it for you. Their boss, not caring about this project that much in the broader context of their work, laughs and says no. You can absolutely be critical to the success of a project, and even important to your boss's future, but have no real leverage over your situation. That's absolutely a reason to leave but it doesn't mean you'll be able to squeeze any more money out of the place before you do.
      - geodel 5y ago
        Such a great point to make. Specially since I see myself in similar situation. Maintaining a legacy system on which all the devs except me who worked in past have left. It is critical system or so I heard but as far as promotion/raise go, almost nothing for last 3 years. However instead of getting angry I get that I may be important to direct boss or one level above. But as far as company goes they are all in cloud, next generation and what not. So my criticality is inconsequential in larger context.
  - wpietri 5y ago
    Or even a lot of the middling ones. In the US something like a trillion dollars a year is spent on making people want to buy stuff. Not to mention all the social forces that encourage spending. Relatively few people manage to live far enough beneath their means that they can just quit a job on principle. I happen to be one of the people who can (and has!) quit a job on principle. But it's very much a luxury good that I work hard to afford. And it's easier for me: no kids, no parents to care for, no mortgage to worry about. I would rather more people quit their jobs on principle (or risked it through efforts like unionization). But I mostly don't blame them if they feel like they can't.
  - plutonorm 5y ago
    Obviously you find another job first. That will take a few weeks in this market.
  - hinkley 5y ago
    I’ll take “people who haven’t bought a house or have kids” for 500, Alex There’s a thread right now in r/experiencedDevs about a guy who is trying to buy a house while his employer is cratering around him. Stuff like that happens and tends to stick with you forever.
    - throwaway6532 5y ago
      I have a house and a kid and I have quit on principle before.
jacobolus 5y ago
> refused to let me move for a promotion because I was "indispensable" and "critical to the project". So would they rather have you quit? If not they should be willing to give you whatever title, pay bump, time off, etc. is necessary to keep you long enough for a replacement solution to be found. Otherwise if you just quit they’re stuck negotiating from a position of weakness to hire you back as a much higher paid contractor, or if you decide to take an extended vacation or work somewhere else they are left high and dry. If you are truly “indispensable”, that makes you the one with all of the leverage. If they can jerk you around without pushback, then “indispensable” sounds more like a rhetorical device / excuse.
- xlii 5y ago
  I would argue that exercising such leverage is not only for benefit of the indispensable but also for the organizations which are often inert unless enough initiative is given. Indispensability (true or perceived) hurts not only person but organization as a whole. It creates tension between them, which might break at any point for any reason (a bus, reaching point of no return, dragging organization down) and create difficult to fill void once that happens. I think it should, however, be considered from the true indispensability and not the perceived one. Perceived one is bullying employees, accidentally or on purpose. Sometimes it's bullying ourselves by creating overly controlled environment that solidified over years. In perfect life scenario utilizing leverage would work as following: The Indispensable ask for a minor raise (1-5%) -> Company agrees, because The Indispensable is truly indispensable -> 1 month passes -> Repeat After couple iterations there would be a break point because company will start to weight options and might decide to compensate instead of waiting for next month and another raise request. In this scenario The Indispensable stops being one, so their quality of work improves (less stress) and they get additional income. Company retains The Indispensable since they signaled and through adequate pressure achieved the goal. Fragile process with single point of failure is resolved with more stable solution. Unfortunately it doesn't work in real life often. Some companies simply can't afford matching expectations, no matter how warranted they are. Indispensability there is simply a tax imposed on worker. Some people aren't confident and courageous enough to bring issues out and try to act on them (as business can be intimidating). Last and not least - true indispensability isn't black or white. There's a mixture of politics, perceived indispensability, true indispensability and controlling behavior by The Indispensable one.
fxtentacle 5y ago
That sounds to me like an invitation to negotiate ;) Option A) You truly are indispensable and critical to the project, and soon you're going to be their best-paid employee. Option B) They will now find ways to make you dispensable. And then you'll qualify for that promotion.
- scarface74 5y ago
  It’s not about “I’m indispensable pay me more”. It’s about “I don’t want to have 1 year of experience 10 times”. I always want to have the optionality to change jobs . Things change. Culture changes.
  - Syntonicles 5y ago
    I've heard this "one year of experience 10 times" phrase before. It seems to mean different things in different contexts to different people. Can you explain what it means to you and the implications?
    - scarface74 5y ago
      Real world example: I started my second job in 1999 it was for a bill processing/printing company. Companies would send us data files via ftp, we would merge the files and create files in a format used by industrial printers and mail them out. Later on we were one of the early integrators with CheckFree that was the backend for most online bill payment services. I wrote mostly processing programs in VB6, Perl and C++. I did some GUI programming with C++/MFC/COM (ask your parents). Fast forward to 2008, the world had moved on. But I was still using VB6 (discontinued in 2001) and C++/MFC. My compensation was only $7K more in 2008 than it was in 2000. There were other people doing the new shiny while I maintained the old systems. I learned my lesson. Over the next 10 years, I changed jobs 5 times and doubled my income - nothing to brag about. It was still about what entry level developers get as return offers in BigTech. I was laser focused on keeping my skillset in sync with the market. By 2017 though, I realized my market value as an enterprise dev was going to plateau in 3 years and my youngest was graduating from college. I started pivoting to “cloud” and got into “application modernization” consulting - basically a fancy term for cloud app development and deployments. I got my current job in consulting in about two years ago.
ljm 5y ago
There's the risk of heroism too... you're indispensible because you're that one person who goes above and beyond and everyone sees you as the go-to when shit goes wrong. I've been there a lot, not on purpose but in some organisations it's either that you get your hands dirty or you spend 10x as much time watching the buck being passed. It's definitely one of those things as a developer where you need to learn some management skills or end up burned out of the job.

plutonorm 5y ago

That would be an instant resignation as a matter of principle for me.

CapitalistCartr 5y ago
Principles are a luxury not afforded the poor masses.
- kaba0 5y ago
  If you are indispensable, then surely you have quite a leverage.
  - teknopaul 5y ago
    That argument does not solve the problem. You will stay or go from one project that fails to the next like that. Better to have worked on projects that are still good on your CV.
  - pc86 5y ago
    No. Scenario: There is a project your boss is wholly responsible for. You, from a technical perspective, are absolutely indispensable to the success of said project. Maybe it's a small team, or everyone is overloaded, but you can draw a direct line between you quitting (or doing a bad job) and your boss getting called out or potentially fired. Your boss, however, is not indispensable to their boss, nor is this project indispensable to the larger department. You ask for your raise because of your leverage. Your boss might be worried and try to get it for you. Their boss, not caring about this project that much in the broader context of their work, laughs and says no. You can absolutely be critical to the success of a project, and even important to your boss's future, but have no real leverage over your situation. That's absolutely a reason to leave but it doesn't mean you'll be able to squeeze any more money out of the place before you do.
    - geodel 5y ago
      Such a great point to make. Specially since I see myself in similar situation. Maintaining a legacy system on which all the devs except me who worked in past have left. It is critical system or so I heard but as far as promotion/raise go, almost nothing for last 3 years. However instead of getting angry I get that I may be important to direct boss or one level above. But as far as company goes they are all in cloud, next generation and what not. So my criticality is inconsequential in larger context.
- wpietri 5y ago
  Or even a lot of the middling ones. In the US something like a trillion dollars a year is spent on making people want to buy stuff. Not to mention all the social forces that encourage spending. Relatively few people manage to live far enough beneath their means that they can just quit a job on principle. I happen to be one of the people who can (and has!) quit a job on principle. But it's very much a luxury good that I work hard to afford. And it's easier for me: no kids, no parents to care for, no mortgage to worry about. I would rather more people quit their jobs on principle (or risked it through efforts like unionization). But I mostly don't blame them if they feel like they can't.
- plutonorm 5y ago
  Obviously you find another job first. That will take a few weeks in this market.
- hinkley 5y ago
  I’ll take “people who haven’t bought a house or have kids” for 500, Alex There’s a thread right now in r/experiencedDevs about a guy who is trying to buy a house while his employer is cratering around him. Stuff like that happens and tends to stick with you forever.
  - throwaway6532 5y ago
    I have a house and a kid and I have quit on principle before.

jacobolus 5y ago

> refused to let me move for a promotion because I was "indispensable" and "critical to the project". So would they rather have you quit? If not they should be willing to give you whatever title, pay bump, time off, etc. is necessary to keep you long enough for a replacement solution to be found. Otherwise if you just quit they’re stuck negotiating from a position of weakness to hire you back as a much higher paid contractor, or if you decide to take an extended vacation or work somewhere else they are left high and dry. If you are truly “indispensable”, that makes you the one with all of the leverage. If they can jerk you around without pushback, then “indispensable” sounds more like a rhetorical device / excuse.

xlii 5y ago
I would argue that exercising such leverage is not only for benefit of the indispensable but also for the organizations which are often inert unless enough initiative is given. Indispensability (true or perceived) hurts not only person but organization as a whole. It creates tension between them, which might break at any point for any reason (a bus, reaching point of no return, dragging organization down) and create difficult to fill void once that happens. I think it should, however, be considered from the true indispensability and not the perceived one. Perceived one is bullying employees, accidentally or on purpose. Sometimes it's bullying ourselves by creating overly controlled environment that solidified over years. In perfect life scenario utilizing leverage would work as following: The Indispensable ask for a minor raise (1-5%) -> Company agrees, because The Indispensable is truly indispensable -> 1 month passes -> Repeat After couple iterations there would be a break point because company will start to weight options and might decide to compensate instead of waiting for next month and another raise request. In this scenario The Indispensable stops being one, so their quality of work improves (less stress) and they get additional income. Company retains The Indispensable since they signaled and through adequate pressure achieved the goal. Fragile process with single point of failure is resolved with more stable solution. Unfortunately it doesn't work in real life often. Some companies simply can't afford matching expectations, no matter how warranted they are. Indispensability there is simply a tax imposed on worker. Some people aren't confident and courageous enough to bring issues out and try to act on them (as business can be intimidating). Last and not least - true indispensability isn't black or white. There's a mixture of politics, perceived indispensability, true indispensability and controlling behavior by The Indispensable one.

fxtentacle 5y ago

That sounds to me like an invitation to negotiate ;) Option A) You truly are indispensable and critical to the project, and soon you're going to be their best-paid employee. Option B) They will now find ways to make you dispensable. And then you'll qualify for that promotion.

scarface74 5y ago
It’s not about “I’m indispensable pay me more”. It’s about “I don’t want to have 1 year of experience 10 times”. I always want to have the optionality to change jobs . Things change. Culture changes.
- Syntonicles 5y ago
  I've heard this "one year of experience 10 times" phrase before. It seems to mean different things in different contexts to different people. Can you explain what it means to you and the implications?
  - scarface74 5y ago
    Real world example: I started my second job in 1999 it was for a bill processing/printing company. Companies would send us data files via ftp, we would merge the files and create files in a format used by industrial printers and mail them out. Later on we were one of the early integrators with CheckFree that was the backend for most online bill payment services. I wrote mostly processing programs in VB6, Perl and C++. I did some GUI programming with C++/MFC/COM (ask your parents). Fast forward to 2008, the world had moved on. But I was still using VB6 (discontinued in 2001) and C++/MFC. My compensation was only $7K more in 2008 than it was in 2000. There were other people doing the new shiny while I maintained the old systems. I learned my lesson. Over the next 10 years, I changed jobs 5 times and doubled my income - nothing to brag about. It was still about what entry level developers get as return offers in BigTech. I was laser focused on keeping my skillset in sync with the market. By 2017 though, I realized my market value as an enterprise dev was going to plateau in 3 years and my youngest was graduating from college. I started pivoting to “cloud” and got into “application modernization” consulting - basically a fancy term for cloud app development and deployments. I got my current job in consulting in about two years ago.

ljm 5y ago

There's the risk of heroism too... you're indispensible because you're that one person who goes above and beyond and everyone sees you as the go-to when shit goes wrong. I've been there a lot, not on purpose but in some organisations it's either that you get your hands dirty or you spend 10x as much time watching the buck being passed. It's definitely one of those things as a developer where you need to learn some management skills or end up burned out of the job.