Sounds like a good learning experience. Yes, it's good to be a "team player", go "over and above", all that stuff. A little bit. Put in an extra 10%, but don't

Sounds like a good learning experience. Yes, it's good to be a "team player", go "over and above", all that stuff. A little bit. Put in an extra 10%, but don't do an entire extra job for free. The reality is, you can't really change your job, or the company, by doing a side-project to solve a problem. I know... because I've tried too. The company has a structure, and policies, and probably stuff about job levels, corporate titles, time in a position before moving, etc... that you can't change. If they wanted a VBA scheduling and reporting application, they could have created a dedicated position to do that, hired a contractor, bought it off the shelf, etc. That's what they do for all the applications and projects that they _really_ care about. Yes, they're happy that you're doing it for free, without any of that administrative and financial headache for them. That doesn't mean that they care about it enough to make it worth your while, though. As others have said... work on the resume, apply for jobs. The real opportunity for advancement is on the open market, you really can't expect to get hired as an X, but do Y, and morph it into a better job in a different department at a better pay. Sometimes that might happen, but in general it's not realistic, if they wanted to hire in the Y department, they would. As for your current employer, you can be professional, and transparent, tell them you're looking for a career in software development, if they have openings you would be interested, if they want to create a position for your scheduling application then you will apply, you appreciate that they will be a good reference for you... but you understand that they may not have budget to continue developing your application, your software development aspirations may not be realistic inside their organization (hint hint) etc.