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Ask HN: What can I do when there is nothing to do at work?

2 points by TbobbyZ ↗ HN
I'm a contract software developer and would consider myself mid-senior level in my skillset. I've been working for my current client for about 3 months. Every assignment they give to me I get done as soon as possible to the point that I sometimes don't have much to work on some days. Lots of down time. Over the last few weeks things have really slowed down. Every other day I reach out to my two project managers and the general system architect of the company to see if I can assist them with anything. 90% of the time they have nothing for me.

What I found odd was my department manager, who is essentially the boss of everyone in IT, sent out a mass email asking if they know anyone that can fill a role that requires about 5 years more experience than I have, but involves work very similar to what I was hired on for. I even sent my department manager a text message saying I would be more than happy to take on some of the work this new role is suppose to do once it is filled. In addition I told them I don't have much to work on right now. The department manager never responded to my text, but I could see they read it cause it was iMessage.

We are all working remotely cause of pandemic. There are lots of different internal tools that are used and if I would tinker with them would be essentially guessing to figure out exactly how they work and how I can improve upon them. I would need a businesses analyst to sit down with me to explain everything.

What can I do in this predicament?

6 comments

[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 27.2 ms ] thread
cjbprime
It's kind of odd to imagine not being able to think of anything to do on a system or codebase. Do you need approval before starting on a change? Why not just do something that makes things better?
TbobbyZ
It's difficult to know what can be made better because I don't really understand how the entire system works. It's a monolithic system. Again, it would require a businesses analyst to understand what needs to be improved.

Also, they don't want changes made unless there is a need because they don't want to risk new bugs being introduced.

dataminded
That's the thing you should be working on.

You should understand the system both technically (how is it architected, how does it work, what does it do) and from a business standpoint (why does it do that? where is value derived? what is painful?).

It's hard to add value if you can't be entrepreneurial or innovative.

TbobbyZ
How can someone learn from a business standpoint what the software is suppose to do without anyone internally teaching them? The system is for finance and this is my first finance software job. Should I start learning finance?
dataminded
Yes. It is critical to your long term success that you understand the problems that you are writing code to solve, not just the code.

You said that you complete things as soon as possible. Are you sure that you are understanding the problem? The solution?