The other kind of staff software engineer
Related to this article: The owner of a company (non-startup, but growing and profitable) I used to work for gave me great career advice. He said to always focus on things that produce revenue. If you aren't doing things that produce revenue, try to move into those areas if possible.<p>His view was that revenue can soar 100%, 200%, 1,000%, 10,000% or however high. Cost savings, on the other hand, can only go down to a maximum of 100% (but obviously much lower in practice). So in his mind, a business-wide focus on growing revenue is always better than a focus on cutting costs. If you are in the second boat, it means the company is struggling and maybe it's time to get out.<p>Obviously, a rational CEO would see $1m cost savings the same as a $1m gain in profits, but CEO's are <i>not</i> rational beings (nor is any human) and understanding that they usually prefer higher revenue to lower costs is fundamental to understanding how they value different parts of the company. It's not fair, it's just truth (at least in many companies).<p>There's something refreshing about some hedge funds where portfolio managers are rewarded exclusively on their own performance. For example, if the fund loses money, but <i>you</i> continue to bring in great revenue, you can bet that any sane hedge fund will pay you a lot to stay around, regardless of how they are doing overall. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately), profit in most companies isn't directly attributable in the way it is at hedge funds. But the same truth holds. If you are bringing in good profit, it's hard to get rid of you (or not pay you well) regardless of how the company is doing overall. Try to be in one of those profit centers, if you can.