In my experience there's a few that are critical: Getting the funnest projects Getting reasonable flexibility in hours or days Not being the garbage disposal

In my experience there's a few that are critical: Getting the funnest projects Getting reasonable flexibility in hours or days Not being the garbage disposal, meaning you are allowed to work on important, not necessarily urgent things Etc These do require politics and reputation management. But much of it is being reliable and asking for what you want, but doing what you're given. The rest, a non-negligible amount, comes from the active steps listed on GP.