The Status Trap in Tech

In tech, it’s easy to start chasing the wrong things: The big compensation package. The FAANG logo on your LinkedIn.

It feels like progress, but it’s really just borrowed importance. None of it belongs to you. The moment the market dips or your company restructures, all that status disappears.

What stays are your actual skills. Can you build something useful from scratch? Can you debug a complex system? Those are the things that make you valuable.

The best developers I’ve met aren’t obsessed with status. They’re obsessed with understanding. They learn how things work because they’re curious, not because it gets them promoted. They can spin up a side project, automate something boring, or write code that people actually use.

Titles come and go. Skills compound.

Keep learning, keep building, and the rest will take care of itself.