How I Influence Tech Company Politics as a Staff Software Engineer Many software engineers feel powerless in company politics due to factors like: Technical decisions driven by selfish motives beyond their influence. Powerful stakeholders who are often hard to understand or please. Lack of access to private information critical to political games. Political advantage held by managers/executives who focus on politics while engineers focus on engineering. Key Insight Software engineers are not equipped to play politics like political operators and should avoid scheming or plotting. Instead, they are typically tools used in the broader political games inside companies. Ways to Get Politically Involved Without Scheming Make High-profile Projects Successful Focus on projects the company is heavily investing in (e.g., AI initiatives). Supporting these projects politically benefits the execs leading them. Rewards include bonuses, promotions, and future project appointments. Align Your Pet Ideas with Existing Political Campaigns Instead of pushing your idea independently, wait for a relevant company-wide priority (e.g., reliability push). Present your project as aligned with this priority so executives use political capital to fund it. Executives often crave projects during these waves and are willing to fund engineering suggestions. Timing and Preparation Matter Organizational priorities come in waves—executives will fund projects that fit the current focus, but ignore unrelated work. Preparation is key: Have multiple planned initiatives aligned with different possible priorities. Examples: Billing system reliability improvements for when billing is a concern. Build pipeline replacement for developer experience focus. High-volume service rewrites for performance focus. CMS frontend rebuild when public documentation is spotlighted. Being ready with these allows you to propose the right project at the right time. Consequences of Not Participating Without ready ideas, companies often approve poor technical projects just for political show. Executives must sell these disappointing outcomes while engineers build them. Senior engineers may be blamed for lack of good ideas. Philosophy on Politics for Engineers Cynically, you may be a tool for company power struggles. Optimistically, you enable executives to lead while tailoring your engineering efforts to match priorities. Either way, aligning with current political currents helps achieve technical goals more effectively. --- References from the Post Contribution to successful AI or high-profile projects leads to career rewards. Executive priorities shift, making timing critical to project success. The article links to previous posts on shipping projects, ratchet effects on reputation, and balancing cynicism. --- If you found this useful, consider subscribing to updates or sharing on Hacker News.