> If you're stuck in a situation where you're not getting great feedback on what to work on, that seems like a great time to just build things and experiment on your own.
Such projects could certainly lead to all sorts of career successes... if someone high above you recognizes the value of the project as measured my immediate marketability and profit. But in the other 99.99% of cases, it just looks bad.
"The rest of everyone is over here doing real work, but snide's over in the corner fucking around with someone no one told him to work on. Does he think he's better than everyone else?"
With rare exception, it's just not a good look.
To even begin to guess which projects might be that 0.01% that would get you noticed in a good way often requires having worked there years anyway, wheedling yourself into conversations your pay grade has no right to be in. And if you can do that, why work on the project at all? Wheedling itself is a far more certain path to career success than Thomas-Edison-ing some killer app.
Thomas Edison was one of the worlds greatest wheedlers of all time, the Steve Jobs of his era, stealing credit from every engineer he could find and browbeat.
Such projects could certainly lead to all sorts of career successes... if someone high above you recognizes the value of the project as measured my immediate marketability and profit. But in the other 99.99% of cases, it just looks bad.
"The rest of everyone is over here doing real work, but snide's over in the corner fucking around with someone no one told him to work on. Does he think he's better than everyone else?"
With rare exception, it's just not a good look.
To even begin to guess which projects might be that 0.01% that would get you noticed in a good way often requires having worked there years anyway, wheedling yourself into conversations your pay grade has no right to be in. And if you can do that, why work on the project at all? Wheedling itself is a far more certain path to career success than Thomas-Edison-ing some killer app.