The article discusses how, when companies reach a certain size, tension arises "between owning your work and standing out, vs just doing the minimum". Plenty o

The article discusses how, when companies reach a certain size, tension arises "between owning your work and standing out, vs just doing the minimum". Plenty of folks on HN abhor doing the minimum and rightly so, but rarely is there discussion of the forces pushing programmers towards doing the minimum when they'd prefer to own their work. At one place I consulted, there was an engineering manager who firmly pushed team members to own their work, at least verbally. Conflictingly, her idea of owning the work was to do it exactly as the organization and leadership directed, without complaint, and never raising any issues about how and what was being done. How does a programmer own the work and stand out when the incentives reward conformity but punish going outside the lines?