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by jdbernard 3695 days ago
It very much depends on who that person in the corner is. I've seen junior devs waste a lot of time doing this. However, I have seen one or two examples of a senior dev solving a real pain-point that wasn't getting fixed within the system, for one reason or another.
1 comments

Right; for me the determining factors between the two cases are:

1) It is a known pain point, so the problem has been discussed. Probably a lot. The pain is the reason for the code, and if there's a new tool involved, that's additional not a main reason.

2) it's usually a technical task - for example something related to faster, more reliable deployments. This means that the requirements are already well-known by the engineer, and that it probably hasn't been addressed yet as it's hard to tie to a business benefit.

3) Experience of the engineer. Senior devs are more likely to chose a good target.