[madmountaingoat]

I hope this was more of a philosophical musing than career advice. I've not worked at every big company, but I have worked at a few. I agree that in the context of a big companies, "done" is a metric; and career success at that big company depends on moving the metrics those leaders track. But in my experience modern big companies also look at peer review and if you're always committing junk, those reviews are not going to be kind. So like everything, it's a balance. Please your boss by closing tickets. Please your peers by writing good code.