Avengers get the glory, preventers get no story.

People do get credit for making things that "just work".

Here is another take in s different context.I had a very bad manger who was credited earlier with causing several companies to go out of business while he was taking advantage of having worked for a FAANG company. He worked there for less than 6 months as a business development dude when the that big shot company was new in that market.After he joined us and when I was processing some payments I noticed that he was paying some people for 2 months ahead of their starting dates, it was some $20k.I notified him, and he corrected the date,then I was told by others in the department that my problem was that I should not 'interrupt the enemy when he is making a mistake'. Eventually, the company got rid of him but it was after a very serious damage.

I'd guess a lot of people here consider this "reality" at this point. Has anyone come up with a response—not a fix for the company or leaders behaving this way, but a response for their own path?

Did you change from a quiet diligent one to manipulating and playing the game (now that you know the game)? Did you go from quiet and diligent to quiet and not diligent (why do good work when meh work does the trick)? Another path?

People don’t get credit for fixing problems that do happen. Maybe possibly in a sales scenario where your fix unblocked the sale. Otherwise nada.

Prevention is hard to sustain because the success is invisible : nobody notice the defects delays or crises that never happened

This is the real problem with performance reviews in companies, which then feeds into opportunities, promotions and compensation. It's just a popularity contest. And this is particularly harmful to people who are neurodivergent, particularly if they're on the autism spectrum, because neurotypical people, who end up making all these decisions, view such people negatively for literally no reason.

You could spin up a team of 6 engineers and have them go away and try some greenfield project. They could come up back in 6 months having shipped nothing. Which of these descriptions fits the facts?

1. The team learned a lot and ultimately decided there was no product-market fit and decided it was best to reallocate resources elsewhere. The learnings from that project will help a whole bunch of other projects across the division; and

2. They failed to ship and get subpar performance ratings for having no impact.

The answer is... both. Or either. How you are treated will depend on how you are viewed by your management chain and that's a social function. We've all encountered people who never shut up about how hard their job is. Often they end up solving problems that they created, often by not listening to anyone that those problems would occur. And they get credit for it.

You could say to people who anticipate problems to stop because it gets you nowhere. Let people fail. If only it worked that way. Instead you'll get blamed for not seeing a problem someone else created because you're viewed as competent but you aren't liked through no fault of your own.

Google seems to be the posterchild for a company that briefly solved this problem and then forgot what made them successful. I am referring to Project aristotle [1], which ultimately determined that psychological safety was the key ingredient in a team's success.

Now amplify all of this with constant rounds of layoffs where the environment isn't just for pay bumps and opportunities but where the cost of failing is losing your income. What you've created is an environment where office politics is everything.

[1]: https://psychsafety.com/googles-project-aristotle/

Human civilization runs on personal sacrifices but money bags will never care about that.

Very true! Along with it comes with peace/quietness at work so it’s not too bad.