Engineers rise or fall in status through a ratchet effect where early project successes lock in reputation, making it hard to gain or lose senior visibility.
Engineers at large tech companies advance or stall because reputation works like a ratchet. When you join, you start with low-status work that only your immediate team sees. Delivering those tickets well earns trust locally and unlocks slightly bigger projects that are visible to neighboring teams and skip-level managers. Each successful hand-off ratchets your status upward, eventually reaching projects that involve senior executives.
The ratchet is one-way because reputation forms quickly but changes slowly. Executives form snap judgments based on the few high-visibility successes they see. If you ship a project that delivers value, you are labeled strong; if you fail early, you are tagged weak and future high-profile work is withheld, reinforcing the downward spiral. Even when a weak engineer somehow lands a big project, a trusted senior engineer is usually paired as a shadow-lead, ensuring the credit stays with the senior and the risk stays low.
Getting out of a negative ratchet requires consistent small wins. Teams are busy enough to forget early missteps once you start delivering useful work again, but it takes multiple higher-profile successes before skip-level managers revise their view. If the reputation damage is deep, a clean slate at a new company may be the most efficient path.
For technical leaders, the practical takeaway is to prioritize shipping low-risk, visible work early, use those wins to climb the visibility ladder, and avoid the temptation to jump straight to high-profile projects before you have the reputation capital to back them up.
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