- Career-wise*, work with good people on something important, maybe switch it up every 3-5 years. That is under your control and steady. Professionally, daily wins/losses, keeping up with joneses, etc. don't matter when you can point to these. Likewise, your trajectory is largely kept on lock by your peers as well. Skipping out on any of these causes problems like you're finding. Doing lots of tiny things doesn't add up after a point, and instead distracts from getting anywhere on the good ones. Working with bad teams, bad companies, and bad projects make it hard to progress as well. So line up the basics and no longer a concern -- just progressing on the mission largely takes care of the rest.
- Same-but-different home-wise.
*This kind of advice doesn't apply to ultra-political orgs like FAANGS or say banks.
- Career-wise*, work with good people on something important, maybe switch it up every 3-5 years. That is under your control and steady. Professionally, daily wins/losses, keeping up with joneses, etc. don't matter when you can point to these. Likewise, your trajectory is largely kept on lock by your peers as well. Skipping out on any of these causes problems like you're finding. Doing lots of tiny things doesn't add up after a point, and instead distracts from getting anywhere on the good ones. Working with bad teams, bad companies, and bad projects make it hard to progress as well. So line up the basics and no longer a concern -- just progressing on the mission largely takes care of the rest.
- Same-but-different home-wise.
*This kind of advice doesn't apply to ultra-political orgs like FAANGS or say banks.