[nnadams]

> The lamentable work that many people avoid are great places to look for high impact, low hanging fruit.

Agree with this. When it comes to succeeding at work, especially at a big corp, I've always said something similar: after responsibility is abdicated, opportunity remains. Being annoyed at the present is often a position of power in the software world. Suddenly you have motivation to drive change and a bit of knowledge to get started. Of course you need the time and the freedom to use that.

One way I try to spend time doing the dirty work is by over-estimating. It's taken many years to really learn this, but I now over estimate tasks by quite a lot. This helps me not feel rushed, feel good when I deliver early, and gives me time to look around and improve something. Reflecting on previous tasks and what was annoying or oft repeated has helped me improve my process.

[andreimackenzie]

How estimation is marketed matters, too. Don't let your stakeholders think of it as an over-estimate. It's an estimate that considers the needs of the full software development lifecycle: automating tests, developing monitoring, refactoring to clean up old tech debt, etc.

[galoisscobi]

Makes sense. It also must be nice to convey the dev lifecycle factors that go in to estimates.

Where I work refactoring is a trigger word and we are advised to never say the word when talking to management and it must never show up in any planning material/meetings etc.

Someone made the mistake of including refactoring efforts in their plans and they were asked to scrub it out.

[hoosieree]

This all boils down to how much you trust your management with the long-term health of the business. Not refactoring may actually be the right call. Maybe it will become a necessity later, maybe not.

If management just wants to flex their authority, you can inflate your initial estimates. It's only unfair when one side treats an estimate as a negotiation and the other side doesn't.

[tokinonagare]

>One way I try to spend time doing the dirty work is by over-estimating. It's taken many years to really learn this, but I now over estimate tasks by quite a lot.

I'm only 4 months into the industry and I felt like a slacker for figuring out this trick. Now I feel better about it thanks to your comment :)