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Comment by throwaway2019G | Hacker News Reader

throwaway2019G

Being irreplaceable. I worked on a team where our full-stack engineer put in nights and weekends consistently and received a $100 gift card for Christmas. Our data architect worked reasonable hours and received a 5 figure Christmas bonus because he was the only person in the company that truly understood how our vital algorithms worked (he wrote them).

Our full-stack engineer left soon after that.

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Irreplaceable means not promotable. It might get you bonuses, but they cannot promote an irreplaceable architect unless they replace them. Hence the problem.

I work the opposite way - I actively try to cross-train everyone on my work so I can easily do something else. Whether that is new development, or a new role, it is not just maintaining the same old stuff that I built to make me 'irreplaceable'

Generally very true. Ultimately it's just a game of leverage. If you're hyperspecialized and irreplaceable, you have essentially unlimited bargaining power against your current company. At the same time, if you're hyperspecialized and irreplaceable, you likely have less bargaining power on the general market because you've overspecialized.

We had a guy who knew everything, and was a gate keeper to that knowledge. New VP came in, and said he had to no longer be a silo of knowledge. He kept being a silo. VP fired him and expected the team to play catch up, knowing the company would take a hit short term but be better long term. Buyer beware.

How did that work out in the short term and then in the long run?

Short term was scary, some folks put in more hours, systems too longer to recover if something went sideways (which they did, a lot). Long term, it was great. A whole team of people who were able to keep systems green and diversity of opinions on how to improve systems. It worked out better than I could have expected.

Consistently working nights and weekends is imho a warning sign from both an employee viewpoint as well as for enlightened employers.

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