3 ms·

I'm there now. Our product has achieved cruising altitude, and there isn't a lot to do now but polish it and routinely remind my manager that we don't need to

I'm there now. Our product has achieved cruising altitude, and there isn't a lot to do now but polish it and routinely remind my manager that we don't need to add new features just for the sake of adding features. There's no other challenging products in the pipeline, so ... it's boring. Very boring. I can do my entire job in a few hours a week if I want, and most of that is pointing junior developers in the right direction and interfacing with management to answer questions. My next installment of the golden handcuffs happens in September, or I'd be out already.

mikewarot 5y ago
Why not have a talk with management after the golden handcuffs? It may be that they've got some projects in mind, but haven't surfaced them yet.
gregmac 5y ago
I'm having as hard time imagining this situation. There's no expansion of the market possible? Potential customers never say no based on features? No reductions in cost possible? Nothing that would get existing customers to pay you more? I don't think I've ever worked on anything where I didn't have a "nice to have" list of interesting things that could easily keep me busy for a year, basically at all times. This is stuff like making the build or deploy or backups faster; tools to make troubleshooting simpler; making the UI retain my last filtering selection when I log in, or fixing that annoying bug where text sometimes overlaps an image. Or it can be as big as rewriting the entire backend processing system, because everytime we touch it, 10 new bugs appear and it has zero ability to be unit tested. This isn't even getting into the product itself. Seems like a failure (or more likely total lack) of product management.
- 1123581321 5y ago
  It happens more at companies where there are multiple products. The opportunity cost of expanding features on product A is expanding features on product B. And then product C comes along, and it’s really hot, and so if A is stable and earning good marks, it doesn’t change much.
chrismcb 5y ago
Sounds like you probably should be implementing those new features.
- Tcepsa 5y ago
  Not necessarily. I think it is probably best, for example, that my microwave is not also a calendar.
  - pc86 5y ago
    This is a bad attitude to have, but at least if implementing those (largely useless or unnecessary) features they would be able to try out new technology, new architecture, or something to give their day a little something.
bamboozled 5y ago
Congratulations, you're the epitome of being spoiled rotten.

mikewarot 5y ago

Why not have a talk with management after the golden handcuffs? It may be that they've got some projects in mind, but haven't surfaced them yet.

gregmac 5y ago

I'm having as hard time imagining this situation. There's no expansion of the market possible? Potential customers never say no based on features? No reductions in cost possible? Nothing that would get existing customers to pay you more? I don't think I've ever worked on anything where I didn't have a "nice to have" list of interesting things that could easily keep me busy for a year, basically at all times. This is stuff like making the build or deploy or backups faster; tools to make troubleshooting simpler; making the UI retain my last filtering selection when I log in, or fixing that annoying bug where text sometimes overlaps an image. Or it can be as big as rewriting the entire backend processing system, because everytime we touch it, 10 new bugs appear and it has zero ability to be unit tested. This isn't even getting into the product itself. Seems like a failure (or more likely total lack) of product management.

1123581321 5y ago
It happens more at companies where there are multiple products. The opportunity cost of expanding features on product A is expanding features on product B. And then product C comes along, and it’s really hot, and so if A is stable and earning good marks, it doesn’t change much.

chrismcb 5y ago

Sounds like you probably should be implementing those new features.

Tcepsa 5y ago
Not necessarily. I think it is probably best, for example, that my microwave is not also a calendar.
- pc86 5y ago
  This is a bad attitude to have, but at least if implementing those (largely useless or unnecessary) features they would be able to try out new technology, new architecture, or something to give their day a little something.

bamboozled 5y ago

Congratulations, you're the epitome of being spoiled rotten.