One thing I struggle with a lot in my career is that I am very *good* under pressure. I like working under pressure. I am really good at building plans and testing hypothesises under pressure. I also want to do things I can be proud of. I don't want to be in the same spot and not getting better. So, usually after two years things aren't in the crisis point anymore, and I begin to feel useless, rather than acknowledge that I helped make things better. And I don't know how to grow into a role where I am a senior who is managing a system.
Most of this comes from the problem of tech companies not *promoting*. My last two jobs I came in to a situation where there wasn't a lot of support for the operations team, and things were a mess. I was then *heavily* involved in cleaning up the situations, and spent a lot of time in high pressure fixes. And generally got most of my respect from my ability to fix those crisises.
But then, in both roles, I transitioned into a role where I was the fixer - the person who was trying to keep things sensible. But I wasn't promoted or changed in terms of authority in both cases. Meaning that I am making changes to a system, without authority to authorize those changes, so I am stuck making little tweaks here and there - with no architectural vision or authority. And maybe that's the problem. Or maybe it's a skill I am missing and I don't understand.
Part of that problem is that I am always working on stuff that is for stability, repeatability, and safety - rather than features - it's hard to *sell* what I do. It's also hard to sell when you don't have it. But it means that I often lose to those pushing features.
