Don't End The Week With Nothing

Human capital -- the skills you've built up over time and the value you're able to create as a result of them.

You don't have to optimize for "sexy" projects. You know, sexy projects: I don't know how to describe them but I know it when I see it. Most engineering work isn't intrinsically sexy. I would, however, optimize for impact and visibility.

This could mean working in industries which default to being open rather than those which default to being closed.

If you take no other advice from me ever, ship something. You'll learn more shipping a failure than you'll learn from reading about a thousand successes. And you stand an excellent chance of shipping a success -- people greatly overestimate how difficult this is. Just don't end the week with nothing.

Reputational capital -- the way your name rings out in rooms you aren't even in, simply when your topic of expertise comes up. (Hopefully in a good way!)

The failures and false starts aren't extremely interesting to most people, but having some successes under your belt credibly demonstrates that you're capable of either reproducing them in the future or experimenting your way to new successes in your new environment.

This could mean working on particular projects within the organization which like external visibility (e.g. Android) rather than projects which don't (e.g. AdWords)

A lot of day jobs structurally inhibit capital formation.

Write about those lessons as you learn them. If at all possible, publish what you write. Even if it is published to an audience of no one, you will be able to point people back to it later.