"As an engineer who has been through this way too many times, I'll try to give a real answer:

1. Do your job to the best of your ability because its what you are a professional. To be in upper management you have to know how to play politics, to be an engineer you have to actually understand your trade. Do your best so you can look yourself in the mirror and know your worth isn't what a bean counter says it is. Its about self-respect. and if you end up laid off or even PIPed, you can hold your head high. That confidence will move you to the front of the line for the interviews to come.

2. Keep records of what you do. Once a month update your resume. Stand back and look at what you did in a way that will stand out when interviewing. Don't wait until after you are locked out - write it down now while you can review your own work.

3. Listen to your teammates - are they allies or adversaries? Are their review comments helpful or building a case against you in the next ranking. Not everyone is your friend and not everyone is your enemy. Always treat both with respect, but don't be naïve. Quickly discovering who is on your side is the number one thing you can do to protect yourself when politics are played.

4. Talk to your manager, regularly. Never assume they know what you are doing even if they are in stand up. Get yourself on their calendar at least every other week. Make your work visible to them, document it every week. If they like you, it will be used to defend you. If they hate you, they will let you know where you stand earlier.

5. Be visible to your skip level and to other team leads This protects you if your manager isn't liked. I've seen way too many great engineers suffer because of a manager that wasn't liked by their boss.

6. Pay attention in all hands - not the pre-prepared, highly sanitized slides but listen careful for how they respond to questions. Management are employees too - they have been told what they cannot share but they will slip up. Micro-mistakes usually. Chat with a least one co-worker about what you heard, they will hear something different.

7. Watch how your company (all companies actually) treats its employees in bad times - take note of the companies that violate their principles when things get hard. Watch which ones do rolling layoffs, forced URA, prefer hiring over promoting. Do they offer remote and then demand RTO? Take note of this - its indicates a company that doesn't respect you.

8. Watch what the CEO does - does he play follow the leader? Is he afraid of making announcements? Does he hold all-hands and then announce a controversial policy the next day? Take note of this - these are weak leaders and forecasts more of the same in the future.

9. Remember, if you are laid off - its never your fault. I know this seems like an obvious thing, but your mind goes there and will stay there. Layoffs are always mistakes made by upper management - they over hired, they tried to market something that wasn't selling, or they just want their stock options to go up. If you do #1, then don't blame yourself - you did your job. If you did 2-5 you did everything you could to protect yourself. If you did 6-8 you knew it was coming.

10. Finally, and most importantly, make sure you spend time every day becoming better - do a LC problem, update your resume, spend 30 minutes learning something that will get your next job. Take the power back into your hands.

If this sounds like a "get over it" post - it isn't. I just spent 30 minutes typing it out because of Gobble's weak leadership. I'm in the same boat, but I decided to think about the 10 things I could do. #11 is GTFO when I find something that makes me not worry as much. Respect matters more than a big paycheck. Most of big tech has now told us who they are, never forget."

Source: https://www.teamblind.com/post/How-the-f-do-you-work-S8VqobOs