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My main project got cancelled - How can I find new scope for me to work on?
Senior Software Engineer [L5] at Pinterest2 years ago
I joined Pinterest few months ago, and I was under the impression that I will be driving a large, high-impact project. I was hired with this project in mind, but due to external factors, this project has been deprioritized and removed from the roadmap.
This puts me in a vulnerable position as now I don't have major scope to work on. Here are my thoughts on how to remedy the situation:
- Find new scope - I am doing this now, but this is tough as I'm pretty new. Unsure how I can find this on such short notice.
- Change teams
- Wait for the manager / lead to figure out a new large scope project for me
- Work closely with my manager, so they can find a new project for me
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Discussion
(1 comment)- 12 years agoRobinhood, Meta, Course Hero, PayPal
- Instead of trying to create an entirely new project, try to generate additional scope by expanding the scope of a current project. See what your teammates are working on, and see if there's an opportunity for you to tag along and majorly enhance or expedite the project in some way.
- I'm skeptical of changing teams as team changes are pretty thrashy, and there's no guarantee this won't happen again.
- Work closely with your manager to come up with a new project/resolution in general. No sane manager would just sacrifice an L5 engineer. Make it clear that it's a P0 for you both and follow-up every week.
- Another option is to loan yourself to a sister team that has the reverse problem: Too much work and not enough engineers. In a big company like Pinterest, I'm sure there's a team in this scenario; the goal is to find one as close to yours in the org chart as possible. I actually had to do this during my time at Robinhood, and it worked out great!
