I agree that understanding what work is considered essential at your company and getting assigned to it can accelerate your career, but I struggle to connect wi

I agree that understanding what work is considered essential at your company and getting assigned to it can accelerate your career, but I struggle to connect with most of the other points. In particular, the idea that you can tank your reputation by being seen as doing other things during "all hands on deck" moments. If your team regularly has "all hands on deck" moments, that itself is a negative signal; management isn't properly resourcing the team. In 16 years across multiple companies I can think of exactly one such moment. Even then, at that time I was in a hybrid management/IC role so I could "see behind the curtain", was in the manager chats, in the performance review meetings, etc. and there was none of what the article describes - no one noticing folks in chat asking unrelated questions, no one bringing it up or penalizing them, etc. Many systems are interconnected. Most engineers can work on more than one thing at once, and often do because of human or technical blockers. Any manager who doesn't understand that and thinks people can or should focus one exactly one thing for extended periods should be removed from their position.