Stage 3 · Lesson 1 of 7
Work close to money and customers
When a company cuts, it protects what earns money, what keeps paying customers happy and what the law requires. It cuts experiments, internal nice-to-haves and projects with no clear owner first. So the most useful question about your work is: if this stopped tomorrow, who would notice, and how much would it cost?
Work on billing, checkout, the core product, security, compliance or a large customer is . A long internal rewrite with no deadline is far from it. You do not have to leave a project you love, but you should know where it sits, and try to have at least part of your work close to or customers.
Common trapchoosing work only because it is technically interesting, then finding out in a that nobody outside your team knew it existed.
A question to check yourself, an AI practice session and 1 cheat sheet entry come when you add the roadmap to your account. Add it
Resources for this stage
Start with· follow one of these
- GuideFreeGet Your Work Recognized: Write a Brag Document
Julia Evans
A template for writing down your impact every week, so it is ready when someone asks
- GitHub repoFreePath to Senior Engineer Handbook
Jordan Cutler · Intermediate
The sections on ownership, impact and working with your manager