You join a new team. 12 engineers. You tell yourself it’s simple: do good work and you’ll be recognized.

6 weeks later, something feels off. You speak and get interrupted. Someone assumes you’re more junior than you are. None of it is dramatic, but it changes who the room sees as the technical owner.

This issue is a collaboration with Kinga Bojarczuk, Staff Engineer at Meta, who's has been building systems at scale there for over 6 years.

Taken together, moments can add up into what I call an influence leak.

It shows up in any team where perception lags reality. If you don’t correct it early, your work stays the same, but your trajectory slows.

1. Bias you can feel but cannot easily prove

Most bias in engineering teams is subtle. No one says "we trust him more", but it shows up in small ways:

Early in my onboarding to a new team, an engineer walked me through concepts I already coached others on. Rather than correcting him repeatedly, I asked precise questions and proposed improvements. Once he saw the depth of my thinking, the tone changed.

Kinga shared a similar moment:

A new engineer joined her team. He was confident and experienced. Kinga reviewed his diffs and gave technical guidance. He ignored most of it. When their tech lead repeated the same feedback later, he accepted it immediately.

None of these moments alone derail a career, but they slow down how quickly people recognize your authority.

Practical influence tactic: Pre-wire your authority

Influence in meetings often starts before the meeting happens. For example, before a design review, circulate a short document outlining the problem and your recommendation. Now when the discussion starts, people already associate you with the solution. Where could you do this in your current work?

2. Confidence gaps appear in real time

Another pattern appears when someone pushes back with confidence. Kinga shared a moment from work that captures it well.

She disagreed with an engineer about a technical decision. His reasoning didn’t hold, but he was confident and kept pushing. She started doubting herself, reread documentation, checked assumptions again. In the end, she was right from the start.

The only thing that changed was how long it took her to act on it.

In teams, this shows up as softening your point until it loses impact, or hesitating to ask for larger scope. Meanwhile, others learn early that confidence shapes the room.

Practical influence tactic: Propose projects, not tasks

Bring a problem, a plan, and the expected impact. That positions you as someone defining the work, not just executing it. Where could you do this on your current team?

3. Some moments reveal the dynamic immediately

Early in my career, I went to a conference with my manager. When we spoke to people, they kept directing answers to him. We tested it. I introduced us first. 3 out of 3 times, the conversation still shifted to him.

That’s when I realized: you need a plan for how you respond in real time.

Another early lesson came in a design review.

I was presenting. A senior engineer kept cutting me off. I assumed he had something important to add. When I finally finished, most of his concerns were already addressed.

Now I handle it differently. If it happens again, I say: “Can I finish my point? I let you finish yours.”

You cannot control their attempt to dismiss you. You control whether it works.

Practical influence tactic: Assert your speaking space

Decide in advance how you will respond if someone interrupts. Pausing 2-3 seconds before replying forces people to wait, signals confidence, and interrupts the automatic rhythm of people talking over you.

4. The promotion hesitation trap

Kinga shared a moment that illustrates another common pattern.

Her manager asked if she was ready to be put up for promotion. Her first instinct was hesitation. What if she wasn’t ready? Then she made a different decision. She said yes. The promotion went through with strong support.

The risk wasn’t saying yes. It was waiting too long.

Practical influence tactic: Track your evidence

Keep a short record of your contributions, decisions, and wins. This gives you something concrete to point to when opportunities appear.

The part that matters

You cannot control every dynamic in the room.
You control the decisions that shape your career.

Do you ask for scope or wait?​
​Do you speak or let it pass?​
​Do you clarify expectations or assume your work will speak for itself?

These situations show up every week. Most people treat them as one-offs.
They’re not. They add up over time.

If you are reading this as an engineer

Think of your last team meeting:

1. Who dominated the discussion?
2. What could you do differently next time to make sure your voice counts?

If this felt familiar, it’s not a one-off.
These situations show up every week in small decisions, what to take on, when to push, when to step back, how to build visibility.

I write about those decisions as they happen.