I’ve seen this play out at multiple startups. The people holding things together often don’t fit neatly into the KPIs or eng chart levels. They’re mentoring juniors, redesigning workflows, updating documentation, and bridging gaps between departments. Because their scope isn’t bundled into a single “initiative,” reviews don’t always capture their true impact.
I’ve felt this personally working on the design system used across the entire engineering org. Three years after I left, that system is still the foundation the team builds on. At the time, the cross-team coordination and invisible maintenance work pulled me away from more visible deliverables, so it was harder to show impact in a review cycle. But the endurance of that system is its own validation—it shows how much hidden glue work pays off when invested properly.
The takeaway for me is that the best orgs figure out how to see this kind of work before it fades into the background. If you can spot and reward it early, you not only retain the people doing it, you build resilience into the team itself.
I’ve felt this personally working on the design system used across the entire engineering org. Three years after I left, that system is still the foundation the team builds on. At the time, the cross-team coordination and invisible maintenance work pulled me away from more visible deliverables, so it was harder to show impact in a review cycle. But the endurance of that system is its own validation—it shows how much hidden glue work pays off when invested properly.
The takeaway for me is that the best orgs figure out how to see this kind of work before it fades into the background. If you can spot and reward it early, you not only retain the people doing it, you build resilience into the team itself.