Being competitive, to me, means:

• being able to work on most of the issues I want in the company in some fashion
• having accumulated a certain stature and respect from both the engineering and business side which I can trade for space and agency
• being in a place where I can break company soft/hard rules to get things done.

Looking back at the process to get to that place trying to reverse-engineer it, a lot of it boils down to building relationships, maximizing knowledge acquisition and shipping.

The author describes a strategy for identifying and learning from the most impactful people in a company. He first tries to find the company’s “wizards” — the small group of people who contribute disproportionately to important work. This involves evaluating:

• How others perceive and talk about them
• What they actually do and how closely their work connects to the company’s core systems
• The quality and impact of their code or output
  After identifying these high performers, the author studies them closely by following their communication, reading their work, reviewing their projects, and understanding their areas of expertise and relationships across the organization.
  The ultimate goal is to learn from these people, absorb their knowledge and skills, build strong working relationships, and become someone they want to collaborate with. The key idea is that proximity to exceptional people accelerates personal growth and effectiveness.