Lack of Control

Engineers at Big Tech often experience a deep lack of control over their work, compensation, and long-term impact. Here are the core points from the lesson:

• Politics and top-down decision making mean engineers can invest heavily in projects only to have leadership reject ideas or directions with no recourse
• Compensation elements like company multipliers are tied to overall corporate performance, which individual engineers have virtually no influence over
• Constant reorgs, shifting org charts, and manager reshuffling create instability and make teams feel like they’re moving for reasons that aren’t always merit-based
• Big Tech frequently kills projects, even promising or widely used ones, because they don’t meet multibillion-dollar expectations, leaving engineers demoralized and powerless over product fate