Ask HN: How do I become a proactive coder at work?

[TbobbyZ]

I feel too reactive with my work. Either waiting for people on what they want changed or handling unexpected bugs. When I’m not waiting on anyone or I understand the issue, I can work a lot and get into a flow state pretty easily. This is when I’m the happiest at work.

I’ve been at my current gig for 9 months and they have many applications, some 20 years old. Their corporate IT hierarchy seems too big for the company. The CIO has 6 people under them, and each one of those people have 10-30 people under them. My boss is one of the 6.

I want to innovate and help the company be profitable. I want to be helpful. I don’t know what steps to take to become more proactive. My feeling is I need to do a lot of reading of whatever documentation there is and create new documentation if what currently exists is lacking.

[proc0]

Assuming you understand the business at a high level, and who the customer is more or less, you can ask management and leadership about the priorities in regards to what features are more important and why. The objective would be to align your own perspective and incentives in such a way that you can help with identifying the most critical tasks and adjusting your focus accordingly.

Using a sports analogy, If you know where the goal is, and how the game is played, you are in a better position as one of the team players to not only react to the ball appropriately but also position yourself on the field in such a way that will benefit scoring more goals.

[AnimalMuppet]

Maybe ask your boss? "Yo, boss, I've got some spare time. What's the most valuable thing I can do with it?"

[UncleOxidant]

Careful with that. If you tell some bosses that you've got some spare time they'll just give you other tasks to do.

[Kipt_]

I echo this. Every time I've had nothing to do I mention it to the "boss" and the response has been: "Let's fix this".

And letting others know that you want to do work, is being proactive. At least according to my standards.

[downrightmike]

Do your work and don't worry about it.

[TbobbyZ]

But I want to get paid more