[LinuxAmbulance]

I get the sense that Lalit wants to do the work and get paid while avoiding the career meta game. The appeal of that is understandable, but having been in this situation in the past, it's not all its cracked up to be.

The number of tech companies where you can stay employed for a solid decade without falling victim to layoffs or re-orgs are very rare in my experience, even more so ones that offer competitive pay.

If you find yourself looking for a new job and want to move up in title and pay, doing the same sort of unglamorous work for years can be a detriment to that.

[lalitmaganti]

It's not that I want to avoid the career metagame (I would argue I haven't so far) but that the career metagame is different depending on your environment.

[class3shock]

I know this is off topic but if you ever have the inclination to write about it, I would be really interested in reading about any books, people, experiences, professional lessons learned, etc. that have been helpful to you on progressing along a non-spotlight technical focused engineering path.

I'm in a different domain (aerospace) but am trying to carve out a similar career path and am always looking for more to learn about just being a good engineer.

[tanepiper]

This - I've been very honest with my manager that I won't play "the game" in this organisation - I don't really have to, there is plenty for staff engineers to tackle to have a long career without the yoke of management.

[LinuxAmbulance]

Sure, but Google is a very unique environment and the advice is unlikely to work at the majority of employers.