> Most engineers when "empowered" and left to their own devices without much accountability go off on their own side quests that often add no value to the busin

> Most engineers when "empowered" and left to their own devices without much accountability go off on their own side quests that often add no value to the business, but scratch that engineer's curiosity. These side quests also tend to not contribute to business aligned goals. At my last job, there was a strong bottom-up engineering culture where ICs were empowered to work on what they thought would deliver the most business impact. This was actually quite effective because there were performance incentives to ensure individuals and the organization had aligned goals.