Yeah, it's profoundly unfair in many ways. Most people in their early career have very little influence over what they work on, but that work goes on to profoun

Yeah, it's profoundly unfair in many ways. Most people in their early career have very little influence over what they work on, but that work goes on to profoundly shape their subsequent opportunities. Knowing this, though, you can redirect your career by taking a role that will look great on your CV even if the role itself is horrible. I did this in my early career and it worked well. > stuck on a badly run project with no meaningful results in sight You don't need meaningful results, really. Just projects that sound impressive to prospective future employers where a backchannel won't throw you under the bus. Like if you spend two years on some overhaul of an internal system that turns into a horrible shambolic quagmire, unless your colleagues blame you for the quagmire just leave that part off your CV and say what the project was meant to achieve.