A lot of thinking about software development is focused on the group, the team, the company. This is often done to the point where the individual is completely submerged in corporate "culture" with no outlet for unique talents and skills. Corporate practices can be directly hostile to individuals with exceptional skills and initiative in technical matters. I consider such management of technical people cruel and wasteful.
If this is true I wonder how many CIOs and CTOs would agree or disagree with a statement like that?
I have found that the following options help to alleviate the suffocation.
- find some non-work related software project to do either at home or, with prior approval, on the job. Most good managers realize that 'play' time is important to health and well being.
- For example, whilst riding the train to/from Chicago, I wrote a Sudoku problem solver in C++ using dancing links. Solving Sudoku puzzles has absolutely nothing to do with electronic trading or does it?
- Perhaps join an open source project (check w/ your supervisor to avoid breaking that conflict of interest document you signed!)
- ask to be put on a non-production prototype project where your talents and ideas may be beneficial.
- wander around the office (sea of cubes?) and find out what others are working on and see if they need help (assuming you are not shackled to your cube and have a few personal CPU cycles to devote).
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