I don't understand why we can't take more ownership of our work. Even if you are not immediately and directly compensated for every inch that you go above and beyond, you are still in a position to make yourself irreplaceable in terms the business cannot ignore.
Think about the long play. You join a startup with a broken, hot-potato-style "devops" process. Instead of saying "not my problem" all day, you can take some ownership of the items slightly outside your space and try to arrive at a better solution. If you do this often enough and with enough persistence, the end customer will eventually see benefit. At some point, management will likely notice the correlation as well. Even if they don't, you have gained far more experience than you would have otherwise and can maybe go start your own damn company, realizing up to 100% of the value of your labor.
This is why I try hard, even if someone doesn't make me.
> and the business will never let you actually own it.
This is not true in many startup environments. You'd have a hell of a time getting me to work on a new project without some sort of equity arrangement.
I started out as a junior developer. I am now in the C-suite.
Equity is also not a replacement for salary, which we clearly just take for granted these days.
Taking an adversarial stance in business is the fastest way to wind up nowhere. Being able to "fire the c-suite" is not a good thing. If you have to do that, you likely don't have a viable business in the first place.
Think about the long play. You join a startup with a broken, hot-potato-style "devops" process. Instead of saying "not my problem" all day, you can take some ownership of the items slightly outside your space and try to arrive at a better solution. If you do this often enough and with enough persistence, the end customer will eventually see benefit. At some point, management will likely notice the correlation as well. Even if they don't, you have gained far more experience than you would have otherwise and can maybe go start your own damn company, realizing up to 100% of the value of your labor.
This is why I try hard, even if someone doesn't make me.