You're working on a project, your boss has set you tasks to complete. You complete all the tasks and make pull requests of all the work you've done. Your boss is busy and you don't know what to do next? What do you do? Is it unethical to work on personal projects in work hours, because you're not being paid for that? How do you find other stuff to do?

From manager's prospective I'd say tell your manager you are free if he needs something and do whatever you want, preferably learn/research.
I found it very annoying when I constantly had to drop everything I'm doing to find something else for my dev to do..
If he needs something done, he'll find you.

@vortex if he's busy and i cant reach him or disturb him then do i just sit there and wait or? As a manager what would you prefer your devs did in their "free" time of finishing the assigned tasks?

@rantalicious Not sure about the UK but the kind of projects I'm working on aren't really software related, mostly to do with setting up servers and websites for myself.

Personally, I try to work on skills / tasks I can argue are job-related. But then here I am on devrant sooooo...

@px06 like i said, let the manager know you're free (that way if he needs something done he'll know to give you the task) and if he's not available/has nothing, then go learn something new... Or help a coworker..

Some devs are working non stop for years on same project using the same language/db.. and don't have the time to try and learn new things.. then they find themselves no longer relevant to other jobs..

@lb13 hey! I learned a lot from posts here 🙄

I often have this problem when there's an hour left of the work day. Update your kanban, do code reviews, respond to emails, fill out your time sheet.

If those things are all set, explore something new for an hour. Don't work on personal projects necessarily, but learn for them. Also, if your boss is already gone, leave a bit early.

@Jop- your boss has now paid for you to play video games. This affects your development statistics and can make other coworkers jealous as well as interfering with tax things, etc.

It's simpler if you just leave early or "work from home for an hour" or go learn something.

@Jop- working on a related personal project, sure, but it becomes company property if you work on it at work.

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