A dummy project is your best bet. It provides a nice stable fixture from which you can gather repeatable data, and you can tweak it over time as you discover fl

A dummy project is your best bet. It provides a nice stable fixture from which you can gather repeatable data, and you can tweak it over time as you discover flaws in it. If you're already employed, you're probably taking a day of vacation or sick time. So you're being paid. On the other hand, you're losing a day of vacation or sick time. This has been true for years and years (but that doesn't make it right). Frankly I would seriously worry about trade secret exposure, and any restraint against "moonlighting" or competition by your current employer (some employers forbid working on open source as well). Working on live code puts both parties at risk here. There are indeed companies where, if I had worked on their live code, I would never have worked there (one company was where I learned the phrase "train wreck").