"Ideally, you are connected to important people in your industry" That's why being suckered into backend positions with little or no contact with customers or

"Ideally, you are connected to important people in your industry" That's why being suckered into backend positions with little or no contact with customers or other parts of a company is often not a good idea, even if the pay is good and the tech interesting. Doing postgraduate studies, participating in events, speaking, all of those are very important, yet, at least in my case, I only learned about those relatively recently. I know some good people that don't do this, and they get outsmarted in the career ladder by the more gregarious types (which, in some cases, did worse work, or even worse, some sociopathic/liar types). That's also a reason not to work in big companies :) unless you're a good hand at self promotion and office politics yourself (and there are some toxic companies where not even that can save you. Usually monopolies or oligopolies).