Do they actually not understand that? They might just be fine with a system that makes them more useful.

How do you calculate the time spent on an internal tool like this, actually? (I’ve never been in management). Realistically your team inevitably will have some downtime, maybe some internal tool maintenance can be fit in there? I mean it obviously isn’t fully “free” but is also shouldn’t be “billed” at their full salary, right?

▲

iLoveOncall 3 hours ago | parent [-]

> Realistically your team inevitably will have some downtime

What? My team wouldn't have any downtime even if we had 10x the amount of people.

If you work at a company where you have times where you don't have work to do, you should polish your resume because it means the company will go under.

	▲	array_key_first 2 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Doing work is easy, not doing work is hard. It's trivial for any engineer to find stuff to do. The trick is doing the right stuff. Most software is bad and clunky, most requirements are wrong, and most of your customers, at best, tolerate your product. I think most software companies need to be doing less. Deleting code, refining, and making their product genuinely useful as opposed to "able to technically contort to client needs".
	▲	stavros 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Agreed, our backlog is insane.