> what steps we can take (research, narrowing scope, etc.), to reduce the range I quite literally quit my last job in February because of this shit[0]. Stop. N

> what steps we can take (research, narrowing scope, etc.), to reduce the range I quite literally quit my last job in February because of this shit[0]. Stop. No. These are not useful things for developers, much less senior developers, to spend their time on. 95% of my job ended up being coming up with estimates. My top deliverable to my management chain was estimates. They would only care about the actual development work insofar as it validated or invalidated the estimates deliverables. Hard facts: If time is such an unimportant resource that you're willing to waste most of it doing "research" and worrying about scope, then you don't actually need an estimate. For reporting purposes, just BS one yourself, that's literally your job as a PM. [0] It was well-paying, I was basically fucking around every week doing whatever I wanted, yet this issue alone outweighed all of that and was enough to make me quit.