31–40 of 131 posts
Most software engineers, for obvious reasons, fall into the category of the former. They will always be a minority of the general working population.
The toiling majority generally does not take kindly to having been made redundant. Proceed with caution.
The first person who needs to know, and approve, is your manager. Don't blindside them. Managers do not like that, and your manager is definitely going to find out if anyone else does. After you tell your manager, you won't be in control of what happens next. Consider whether or not you should just keep this to yourself and treat this as a fun learning experience. Perhaps you can gauge their potential reaction by ask…
If you frame it as, "hey, I did this thing that I think might solve a problem and here's a demo," it might work out, or it might not. You could get a promotion out of it, or maybe not. If it's a good idea and the company doesn't want to do it, or doesn't recognize you for it, then you don't want to work there in the long term anyway.
Some of the comments are basically advising not to rock the boat. Anyone in 2022 who thinks their current computer-related job will not become automated or obsolete at some point in the near or distant future is living in a dream world. Nobody is entitled to a job doing tedious work.
Even if your idea is good, logical and beneficial someone in management will take it as a slight that you had a good idea they didn't. Maybe you will have receptive management who are decent human beings, but in my experience you will be lynched for daring to step outside your lane.
Proceed with extreme caution. Your good feeling vibes about the effort you put in will NEVER be received the way you want. Management will see this as a slight and a threat.
Imagine the person who's job you've automated decides to quit.
"Hey boss, instead of taking the time and money to replace so-and-so, how about you just increase my pay by (percentage) of what the salary would be? I have a solution to this staffing issue you might be interested in."
The first person who needs to know, and approve, is your manager. Don't blindside them. Managers do not like that, and your manager is definitely going to find out if anyone else does. After you tell your manager, you won't be in control of what happens next. Consider whether or not you should just keep this to yourself and treat this as a fun learning experience. Perhaps you can gauge their potential reaction by ask…
I don't think this would happen to you, but you might lose some other folks their job. Something for you to consider.
You've discovered the strategy of: Come up with a way to get people laid off so you can monetize a portion of their salaries for yourself. The cynical me says they weren't smart enough to automate away their own work (so they could be assigned more, different work), so eff 'em, right? That is, until someone else automates away your job. The business me says, you found and fixed an inefficiency, so capitalize on it. W…
Only one word of caution. Your manager might ask why you were spending as much time as you were coming up with this solution instead of asking for more work. Most likely the answer is reasonable, but best to have an answer prepared before talking about it.
Fist, a misconception, there is no such thing as "free" time (opportunity cost: whatever you do means you're not doing something else in that same time that might benefit you more).
You likely used an hour in which you were not expected to work as work time (as others pointed out, check your employment contract's IP clause and the IP laws of your country).
Write a memo that _proposes_ what you have already built and share it with your manager. If you receive positive feedback, ask would it be valuable if you went ahead and tried your luck, given that you had the idea (and stress that it won't impact your day job!). If you get permission, show the resulting demo, but only after a substantial piece of work of your main job has been completed. Don't give the impression you dropped everything just because you had an idea. Add the line to your CV/resume that you "Proactively conceived and implemented a system that automated a mechanical human process in another department on top of daily duties.", and it may or may not help you get a little bonus and/or promotion at the end of the year - ensure there are other good things you have done in the same year, in particular close to your daily duties).