The trick is to be so reliable that no one would conceive of getting rid of you even if you come off a little assholish sometimes. I started on the help desk at my last job (fairly large company with around ~25k employees and within a year or two I was the go to for a few of the c-levels when they had issues. I pissed off middle management types occasionally when I couldn't do something they wanted right away because I needed more information or whatever and had to wait on something. Anytime they tried to start shit with me it never took long for a bigger fish to get involved and have my back because they were familiar with my work and knew I wasn't just fucking around.