Playing Politics as a SWE

Macro-Economics: Interest Rates and You

In the 2010s, interest rates were near-zero; investors borrowed a lot of money and spent it on tech companies hoping for outsized returns. Companies desired to attract and retain talent; “literally anything” is worth spending money on to accumulate engineers.

In 2023, interest rates rose to ~5%. Tech companies now need to make money. If your work isn’t clearly connected to company profit, then your position is unstable and on the whims of an executive that personally values your work.

For example, working on accessibility might be valuable because it (1) grows addressable customer base by X%, (2) meets regulations needed to sell to large enterprise customers, (3) avoids the company looking bad, or (4) is the right thing to do. Some reasons are only important to companies when times are good.

In a large customer base worth ~250B, growing the base by 1% unlocks 2.5B and is worthwhile if the team is costing the company less than 2.5B. In smaller customer bases, the team’s cost might be greater than the 1% growth, and the company may not value such work. In short, anything not directly related to profit survives in companies that are very profitable already, e.g., 1% growth corresponds to 5B in revenue.

Protect Your Time From Predators

Helping people from other parts of the company feels good because it feels like the cross-org impact that a staff+ engineer ought to have. However, helping other parts of the org is not your main job. Delivering your projects is.

Predators tend to send work via DMs instead of going through normal channels. The work is uncompensated in that they’re not in your reporting chain and won’t be there for you during performance review meetings. Another type of predator is a weak engineer who draws on your help but (1) can’t share credit, and (2) aren’t able to help you out later because they never acquire the relevant skills.

Distrust questions that are much easier to ask than to answer, e.g., “I just picked up this ticket and I’m lost” compared to “I just picked up this ticket and I’ve tried [link to PR] but I don’t like it for [reasons].” Given a low-effort question, give a low-effort answer.

In Defense of Ruthless Managers

Empathetic managers are emotionally invested in their employees as human beings. Ruthless managers are there to communicate the company’s needs to their engineers and vice-versa. Empathetic managers are often in conflict with their bosses, e.g., pushing back against tight deadlines, which leaves little capital to push for things you need, e.g., promotions.

Ruthless managers are easier to predict because they do what their managers – and the company – values. Empathetic managers have their own priorities, so it is harder to know what behavior they’ll reward.

References

1. The good times in tech are over. www.seangoedecke.com . Mar 16, 2025. Accessed Oct 12, 2025.
2. Knowing where your engineer salary comes from. www.seangoedecke.com . Mar 1, 2025. Accessed Oct 12, 2025.
3. Protecting your time from predators in large tech companies. Sean Goedecke. www.seangoedecke.com . Jan 19, 2025. Accessed Nov 24, 2025.
4. In defense of ruthless managers. Sean Goedecke. www.seangoedecke.com . Mar 31, 2025. Accessed Nov 24, 2025.