Going out with a bang: Doing my best work while trying to keep my job

I have never been so invested in an engineering project as I am in the one I’m doing at work right now. Part of that is the because this company has empowered me tremendously, part of that is because I have found a leadership role where I can make a difference, but mostly I just want to have the last thing I do as an engineer be awesome.

Unfortunately, our company has issues, and it’s falling on me to fix a lot of them. To be clear, in my position, it is definitely not my job to be fixing any of these issues, but being in a leadership position means doing what needs to be done. In this case, that means telling hard truths. Our leadership sucks, and I don’t have the power to make them better.

I have written a 3000 word essay directed at the VP of my organization detailing my grievances, but more importantly, identifying issues and specific actionable fixes that will ultimately make us a better company. The problem I’m having though is sending it. See, if I send this, I cannot see any way to keep working here. Those with direct power of me are getting called out, and I’m bypassing the hierarchy to do so. This is the kind of letter that one sends on their way out the door, but I want to see if it yields fruit. I want to send it now, and see if it makes a difference. Unfortunately again, I need this job. I need to vest my options and my 401k, and i need to ride this job out until it’s time to go to medical school. I can’t really afford to risk it.

But oh damn I really really want to. I’m going to be thinking of ways of mitigating the risk of sending this email until July 2025. Could I send it from a burner email? Yeah, but the content is pretty obvious. What if I sent a pre-email asking if it’s okay for some brutal honesty? Yeah, that might work. I don’t want to learn a lesson from this. I don’t think this is a case of someone getting too big for their britches, and needing to trust authority. I trust that if I’m off the mark in my assessment, that at the very least, the VP can draw some insight from my perspective in it’s context. I don’t want lectures, I don’t want a dressing down, I don’t want accolades if it turns out to be transformative. I just want to get this project done successfully, and leave the company a better place than I found it.