The story from a different perspective: on my old project, there was a bus factor of 1...and I was that 1. When I was a new college hire, I thought that would

The story from a different perspective: on my old project, there was a bus factor of 1...and I was that 1. When I was a new college hire, I thought that would be a good situation. And while it has its perks, it also has many downsides. But the biggest one came when I decided it was time for me to move on. I wanted to stay with the company and move to a new project. It seemed like a great fit, the new project wanted me...but the director of the old organization told me I had to stay responsible for the old product for 3-6 months before I could formally transition. I had to basically threaten to quit in order to have that number reduced. If you are in this situation, make sure that either the company is working to increase the bus number and give you some more resources or that the company realizes your importance and compensates you accordingly. I didn't quite realize that my employer saw me as being the critical engineer until after trying to leave. In hindsight it's obvious, but since I started right out of college as a junior developer under people who knew everything about the problem space, my mindset was never "I am the expert", even long after those actual experts had left.