It's not about skill. My brother who recently started programming has a lot of autonomy at work because he's trying to help out the business in anything he does there. Same thing has happened to me. Your boss is more likely to let you do your own thing when you actually want to help make the company and your boss succeed. Again it's not always about skill
Yeah, I've had a similar experience. Programmers who show that they care about the business tend to get a lot of trust, and therefore a lot of autonomy.
This depends entirely on the person above you. I've found in the past that doing this just results in the person above me either (a) feeling threatened, or (b) relying on me to solve all their problems. Neither is good for career progression.
I personally take on jobs I'm not assigned. But I think believing someone owes you a promotion for working hard is bs. Instead, work on the things you find valuable in whatever way you want it to be.
Tbh though I actually agree with your comment 100% but there is a positive way to spin it
mikekchar's rule of strategic incompetence: Never be really, really good at something that your don't want to do. Otherwise people will keep asking you to do it.
Corollary (and the useful bit): If you show yourself to be really, really good at something people will keep asking you to do it. If it's something you like, then you will be happy in your job.
In any job there are 1000's of things that need to get done that nobody is doing right now. It is a good investment to do some of the things that you enjoy and get really, really good at it. Over time you will find that it will become your job.
> Never be really, really good at something that your don't want to do. Otherwise people will keep asking you to do it.
This is how I was able to avoid getting roped into the IT help desk role. I did that job for a year at another company, I'm really good at it. But when someone comes around looking for help and the guy they hired isn't there, I do not offer to help. No way am I going back to that, I didn't develop Rails skills for nothing.
