I think this varies wildly from company to company, especially your experience in the first two paragraphs. I've worked at companies where what you're saying ri

I think this varies wildly from company to company, especially your experience in the first two paragraphs. I've worked at companies where what you're saying rings true (especially about "not building consensus"), and at companies where taking initiative is a hard requirement - written down in company documents - for any sort of advancement into the Senior Software Engineer & beyond levels.