--- title: Rat's Skills: Making Friends and Betraying Them | daily.dev description: A cynical, satirical breakdown of the unspoken tactics used by corporate climbers — dubbed 'rats' — to advance their careers through politics rather than... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/rat-s-skills-making-friends-and-betraying-them-31lfhyc49 twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Rat's Skills: Making Friends and Betraying Them | daily.dev og:description: A cynical, satirical breakdown of the unspoken tactics used by corporate climbers — dubbed 'rats' — to advance their careers through politics rather than... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/rat-s-skills-making-friends-and-betraying-them-31lfhyc49 og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/31lfHYC49.png og:image:alt: Rat's Skills: Making Friends and Betraying Them og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Rat's Skills: Making Friends and Betraying Them **[Yegor's Blog](https://daily.dev/sources/yegor256)** · 10 min read · 17 upvotes · 2 comments ## Summary A cynical, satirical breakdown of the unspoken tactics used by corporate climbers — dubbed 'rats' — to advance their careers through politics rather than competence. The post outlines eight concrete 'rat skills': talking without saying anything, finding scapegoats, reading between the lines, inventing obstacles, identifying resource owners, making friends at all costs, abandoning self-respect, and embracing incompetence. The author argues that genuine technical talent is a liability in large organizations, and that the path to the top requires fully committing to political maneuvering and betrayal — or accepting you'll be used as a stepping stone by those who do. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Community discussion Top comments from developers on daily.dev. **@bits\_and\_bytes** · 1 upvotes > The scapegoat skill is the one that actually works at scale. When something goes wrong and 10 people were involved, the one who survives is usually not the most competent but the one who frames the story first. **@mr\_guy** · 0 upvotes > Reshuffle responsibilities every now and then to spot a leader. Dead weights can't hide incompetence forever ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [We Are All Playing Politics at Work](https://daily.dev/posts/we-are-all-playing-politics-at-work-i1xp5i0em) · Ibrahim Diallo · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [What does "playing politics" mean for software engineers?](https://daily.dev/posts/what-does-playing-politics-mean-for-software-engineers--kytm9doee) · sean goedecke · 3 upvotes · 2 comments - [How to Work With Anyone](https://daily.dev/posts/how-to-work-with-anyone-58f6x0qea) · Tech Lead Digest · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#leadership](https://daily.dev/tags/leadership), [#company-culture](https://daily.dev/tags/company-culture) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/rat-s-skills-making-friends-and-betraying-them-31lfhyc49) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Rat's Skills: Making Friends and Betraying Them","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/rat-s-skills-making-friends-and-betraying-them-31lfhyc49","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/rat-s-skills-making-friends-and-betraying-them-31lfhyc49"},"datePublished":"2026-07-13T07:19:49.410Z","dateModified":"2026-09-14T07:01:36.973Z","description":"A cynical, satirical breakdown of the unspoken tactics used by corporate climbers — dubbed 'rats' — to advance their careers through politics rather than...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/8f3f28e62087585914e0a27b29fdc5a5?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/8f3f28e62087585914e0a27b29fdc5a5?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Yegor's Blog","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Yegor's Blog","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/t_logo,f_auto/v1/logos/e403368e462f4ae184ab876bda3d013d","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/yegor256"},"commentCount":2,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/rat-s-skills-making-friends-and-betraying-them-31lfhyc49","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":17},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":2}],"keywords":"leadership,company-culture","timeRequired":"PT10M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Yegor's Blog","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/yegor256"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Rat's Skills: Making Friends and Betraying Them"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/rat-s-skills-making-friends-and-betraying-them-31lfhyc49","comment":[{"@type":"Comment","text":"The scapegoat skill is the one that actually works at scale. 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