Know your worth. Don’t hustle out of constant fear you’ll be fired. Don’t answer the phone after 5. Work 40 hours or less. Work is a distraction from life; It isn’t life. Do as little of it as you need to, to achieve your financial goals. Have concrete financial goals. Don’t listen to fearmongering coworkers who have put themselves perpetually on call. If the company loses a customer because you don’t answer your phone, that’s on them not you. And they need to correct their staffing and expectations. Don’t be afraid to ask for more money. Don’t be afraid to quit and find another job. The overwhelming majority of your raises will come from changing jobs. Your company doesn’t care about you. It’s not a family. You’re there because they pay you to be. HR isn’t your advocate. Stock options are a lottery ticket, not a proper form of compensation. Practice being tolerant of some louder, younger engineer having loud opinions about how to do something because ultimately the way they do it wrong probably won’t matter much. Don’t obsess over software purity. If you need your code to be beautiful and elegant at all times, take up a side hobby instead. At least one person will have different opinions on each one of these points.