How to Propose an Impactful Improvement to the Codebase and Own the Implementation
Doing THIS will make you stand out from others!
Intro
Engineers who truly stand out from others are the ones who find impact independently and then take ownership to execute and implement it as well.
This can be either themselves or even better: bring in other team members and deliver the improvement together.
Just waiting for tasks to be assigned to you is limiting your growth and also limits the value that you can provide to your team and the overall organization.
Let’s get into more details of the WHY next.
Why should you propose an impactful improvement to the codebase + own the implementation?
As mentioned above, it will show everyone that you are not just here to focus on your own tasks, but you are here to make things better for your team and overall organization.
Here are some more reasons why you should do that:
You learn a LOT
Every time you work on something new, you learn something new as well. It’s a chance for you to expand your horizons and learn. This can either be a new framework, technology or can be a new domain.
Getting comfortable with being uncomfortable is the way to grow!
You have an opportunity to lead a project
This is especially important for growing towards lead roles. In order to grow, you’ll need to have a good track record of successfully finishing projects and experience leading them.
You can read more about how to grow toward a lead role here: How to grow from senior to a lead role (paid article).
Your overall reputation will grow substantially
And with your reputation growing, you will receive a LOT more opportunities. Plus also the first impression that people will have about you will be better as well.
With a great reputation, you become the go-to engineer in your organization. You can read more about why you should become the go-to engineer here: Become the go-to engineer in your organization (paid article).
Let’s get to one more very important reason next.
Proposing an impactful improvement to the codebase and owning the implementation will get you promoted
There are many reasons why that is the case, but more or less, the sum of all of them is that you are showing that you are:
proactive,
not afraid of taking responsibility and ownership,
you can deal with ambiguity and successfully finish projects.
One of the main important things managers look for in engineers is that they can take “not so clear requirements” and deliver the exactly needed solution without supervision.
That’s exactly what I look for. I am looking to promote engineers, who I can rely on to be given a problem and I just know they will solve it timely and with the right quality as well.
Do this enough times and there are going to be an unlimited amount of opportunities.