How to Stay Engaged During Downtime at Work?

Question

As a software engineer, I've recently found myself in a unique situation &ndash; 4 months of downtime at work with hardly any tasks, just fixing broken servers with a few clicks. Instead of letting boredom take over, I'm determined to transform this downtime into a productive and engaging period. So, I'm reaching out to you all for some brilliant suggestions and ideas!Watching cat videos on YouTube used to be my go-to pastime, but I'm ready to take things to the next level. I'm eager to explore different avenues for personal growth, skill development, and creativity &ndash; anything that can make my downtime at work more fulfilling.Share your insights, and together, let's unlock the full potential of this downtime and emerge even more skilled and inspired! Thanks in advance for your valuable ideas!

gemanor · Accepted Answer

I haven't had such downtime for the last couple of years (working on early-stage startups) but I'd really like them back in the corporate for personal growth as a developer in three ways:
1. Create a new side project unrelated to work, such as a tool or library I always wanted to create.
2. Learning a new stack/domain by creating a product with it. This way, I got proficient in Go language back then.
3. Look around in the corporate and see what I can hack myself for personal growth, AKA intrapreneurship. For example, I went to a CTO office of a sibling organization and asked them if they wanted to do a PoC together with our organization on something new.
If I had such time now, I would look around for a problem in my product/life that I can solve with LLM and try to create a PoC of an LLM product (maybe with a creative UI) that will teach me a lot and maybe get some users.
On the other hand, if you want as a goal to get a position in a FAANG-style company, this is a great time to do a leetcode learning path and get ready for interviews for such jobs.

seance_fiction · Answer

I enjoy finding obscure ways of solving common problems with a new programming language just to keep things fresh. Then I don&rsquo;t feel totally guilty about wasting time bc I still got something done, made my life easier in the long run and didn&rsquo;t lose my mind to sheer boredom&hellip;