Always Do Extra • Hacker News Board

Re: Always Do Extra

#21

Post by knowingathing » Wed, Oct 13, 2021, 9:21 PM UTC

Fantastic article. As a UI designer, I feel like the little bit of "Extra" work that I've done in my career has paid off extremely well.

Of course, you need a manager who understands the intent behind your Extra work is that it is mutually beneficial and that you strike more than you miss when doing that Extra work. If these fall into place, you'll be treated with more respect and will be given more autonomy which further encourages you to do what is right both for yourself and the company you work for.

That's been my experience in my relatively young career (7-8 years). This article sums up this concept really well.

Re: Always Do Extra

#22

Post by eBombzor » Wed, Oct 13, 2021, 9:24 PM UTC

Good message, but not hot on the phrasing. Should've said "always try finding better ways of doing things", where 'better' means less time, less future maintenance, more aligned with overall business goals, etc.

Re: Always Do Extra

#23

Post by shepherdjerred » Wed, Oct 13, 2021, 9:28 PM UTC

silicon2401 wrote: post #3

Does anybody have good examples of 'extra' work they've done? I agree with the author's assertion that doing extra benefits one a lot more than baseline or more work. It's essentially a way to inject creativity and studying into one's normal work, as opposed to just flat-out working on a different project or straight up studying documentation. That comes with the benefit of being able to show it off in various ways t…

A lot of my time as an entry level engineer at a FAANG was doing "extra" work.

It included:

* Migrating our applications from Java 8 -> Java 11.

* Identifying that our fleet was way over provisioned and then downscaling leading to a huge reduction in infra cost.

* Refactor our infrastructure-as-code package to be more maintainable.

Most of those things were useful but not prioritized. I found them interesting or worthwhile, so I took the initiative and drove them to completion. Most of these tasks were on the timescale of months on the side from my assigned work. I didn't overwork myself to do this -- I very rarely worked more than 8 hours a day.

Re: Always Do Extra

#24

Post by ilaksh » Wed, Oct 13, 2021, 9:29 PM UTC

Interesting article. Autonomy (or at least a smattering of it) is definitely key to staying engaged at work.

But I would say that actually those types of research that he mentions are often pretty important aspects of the engineering. And even further, initiatives for new technical approaches or even new features can also be quite important if the project is going to stay up to date and really tackle core technical or business challenges in a robust way.

The degree that autonomy seems "extra" rather than normal in the job may be a bad sign.

Re: Always Do Extra

#25

Post by ksvarma » Wed, Oct 13, 2021, 9:32 PM UTC

This is absolutely valuable on small teams and I repeatedly have seen people on engineering and product do extra (not only on own team, but helping others) and there is this terrific positive environment every time we interacted with cross-domain teams. Overall a win.

Re: Always Do Extra

#26

Post by meheleventyone » Wed, Oct 13, 2021, 9:33 PM UTC

Sixteen years in and I agree with the definition of extra but I do that in the bracket of normal work. As in I do the ‘extra’ stuff and take time out of my working day to do it.

I’m honestly not convinced it has much to do with developer longevity though.

Re: Always Do Extra

#27

Post by kubanczyk » Wed, Oct 13, 2021, 9:34 PM UTC

swiftcoder wrote: post #2

> It's never something we need to hide, but instead it's something we're eager to share with our teams - ala "hey, I did some research on X, and maybe this is something that could be valuable for us to try". I'll give good odds that in most shops, if you pull this line more than a couple of times, your management chain is going to decide you aren't picking up enough work in sprint planning...

> your management chain is going to decide you aren't picking up enough work in sprint planning

A trivial workaround: "hey team, a month ago I did some research on X, and maybe this is something that could be valuable for us to try". It's mathematically the same, but shhh.

You don't need to lie. It's actually better to reflect for some days on any new research.

Re: Always Do Extra

#28

Post by rtikulit » Wed, Oct 13, 2021, 9:34 PM UTC

silicon2401 wrote: post #3

Does anybody have good examples of 'extra' work they've done? I agree with the author's assertion that doing extra benefits one a lot more than baseline or more work. It's essentially a way to inject creativity and studying into one's normal work, as opposed to just flat-out working on a different project or straight up studying documentation. That comes with the benefit of being able to show it off in various ways t…

I was developing designs in a complex problem domain, and I spent some time prototyping an ontology and inference thing to automate part of the design work. Didn't work out -- my time box circuit-breaker triggered -- but it helped clarify aspects of the problem domain in my head. I would say my "extra" compulsion over decades has enriched my career hugely, for both me and my employers.

Re: Always Do Extra

#29

Post by simorley » Wed, Oct 13, 2021, 9:36 PM UTC

Wrong. Business is about relationships. Be competent and do what is minimally required. Do extra networking or befriending your manager/boss/etc.

People who get ahead build relationships. The slaves stick around to do the extra work.

Competence + relationship > competence + extra work

It's so funny how all the business advice is about how to be a good slave rather than what really gets you ahead.

Re: Always Do Extra

#30

Post by tomtheelder » Wed, Oct 13, 2021, 9:41 PM UTC

simorley wrote: post #29

Wrong. Business is about relationships. Be competent and do what is minimally required. Do extra networking or befriending your manager/boss/etc. People who get ahead build relationships. The slaves stick around to do the extra work. Competence + relationship > competence + extra work It's so funny how all the business advice is about how to be a good slave rather than what really gets you ahead.

> It's so funny how all the business advice is about how to be a good slave rather than what really gets you ahead.

This is almost literally the opposite of what the article is advocating.

The author is suggesting that should you complete the work required of you then you should spend any spare time you might have on things that benefit _you_ rather than necessarily benefiting your employer. The author spends the first half of the article explicitly distinguishing this from doing additional, unrequested work that contributes obvious business value. The caveats the author provides are to encourage people to do this in a way that isn't going to get them into trouble, pretty much.

Relationship building for engineers nearly always happens outside of the context of the actual work, so I don't think that's particularly relevant.