Perfecting Power Politics at the W2

It can make or break getting your next promo or rising to the top of the layoff list

Welcome, Avatar!

Startup or big tech, your W2 is like any organization, there will be different people and their pet policies jockeying for power.

As a lowly individual contributor programmer, where does that leave you? How should you position yourself to not only avoid being boxed in to the losing side, but even to win big when the internal winds change?

This post will cover a few ideas and examples of how you can navigate the work politics and have them play in your favor.

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Ignorance is not Bliss

While the saying "Ignornace is bliss" applies well to the NPCs who enjoy being surprised when they turn on CNN, you do not fall into that category, anon.

Situational awareness is your aim.

Do not be one who will naively be surprised by the predictable.

Like in geopolitical movements and the arc of history, it is critical to know:

• who are the big players

• what are their stated public policy positions

• what are their private incentives

• who holds the balance of power currently

• what potential decision inflection points are approaching which could change the balance of power

In your W2, the same concepts map to the players within your organization. Consider the following archetypes and whether you work with them:

• The detached VP who after having started the division, has now heavily delegated, taken his foot off the gas, and spent the past year more focused on renovating his new house after fleeing SF than on the growing problems in the division.

• The "new hire" poached from a big company with a fat bonus and high position, who struts around assuming that they have the mandate to implement drastic changes in how the business or technology stack is run.

• The "old guard" who has been around for over 5, some over 10 years (even more in non-tech fields), who built the current generation of tech and revenue lines and have strong opinions of how they should continue to work, and can talk your ear off for why they are right. They even might be, though the "new hire" and his sycophants gleefully hope for a day when they are pushed to the fringe and they can rule with impunity.

• The "hear no evil, see no evil" willfully blind engineers and managers who like to sit on the fence, stay above the fray, avoid the gossip and rumor mill. Some do so out respect to their noble and moral compass, others prefer an apathetic existence, not holding any opinions so whether the "old guard" reigns or falls, they're happy to serve whoever is in power and collect their bi-weekly paycheck.

• The "old guard" followers, who while younger and not the original contributors, are believers in the opinions and current direction. When the "old guard" is tired of arguing with the "new hire" crowd, their followers may pick up the torch in Slack channel threads and design doc comments to push back on perceived heresy.

• The detached directors, who expertly upward manage their relationship with the VP, and care little about the implementation details of the teams that report to them, content to sit in on countless meetings per week and tout the party line in monthly all-hands meetings. They are as afraid of the VP as they are the engineers at the bottom of the org chart, not looking to take sides on the current tech war of the day and piss off a cohort, no matter how small, of programmers.

• The diversity hires who have an inferiority complex and are difficult to persuade of any improvements, they gate keep repos and processes to feel useful, even at the cost of team or org velocity, and until layoffs can be impossible to get rid of.

For each player, develop a theory of mind for answering the questions at the beginning of this section.

Evaluating each of their positions, incentives, and revealed preferences will make it easier to predict how certain internal battles will play out.

And once you can better predict battle outcomes, you can protect your interests.

Hedge, until you can Twist the Knife

While the most noble position in the battle is the "tip of the spear" shock troops who lead the charge, they certainly can also end up with the most casualties.

While your goal is eventual escape from your W2, first you need to get promoted, fade effort, and build wifi-money.