Ask HN: As SDEs, how do you find new projects to do on your team?

2 points by maybeiambatman 7y ago ↗ HN

I have recently joined a team of scientists where my job is to help them do their work efficiently. There's a lot of inefficiencies in what they do, but also a ton of external dependency. I am having a hard time wrapping my head around everything and struggling to understand what projects/solutions to come up with to solve their long term problems. Should I start with automating small redundant tasks? I fear that I will miss out the bigger picture that way. Do I be patient and let the ideas come to me naturally? I feel like the other SDEs on the team already have sort of "taken" the "big" obvious projects. I'm worried that I'll be unable to have my own impactful project and will be left doing small tasks.

2 comments

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hidden_sheepman 7y ago ↗

It takes time. The more experience you have with the project you're working on the more ideas you will have to either apply to the project itself or create a new project to help support it.

was_boring 7y ago ↗

You need to figure out what will have the biggest impact on the short (<1 month) and long term (6+months).

Start by taking to your customers to understand their pain. Most likely they will be able to articulate short term pain points, but by knowing their process you can figure out the vision for the long term.