I want to tell you about the time I poured almost a year of my life into a project, only to realize it was never going anywhere.

For some context, my first role as a Software Engineer was on a networking team, focused primarily on networking automation.

Network engineers spend a lot of time making configuration changes to routers, switches, and other networking devices.

My job was straightforward: help them build software that automated these repetitive tasks.

At the time, I was paired up with a principal networking engineer who was absolutely brilliant.

This guy had built most of the network infrastructure from the ground up.

I was genuinely excited to work with him. Who wouldn't be?

He pitched me this ambitious idea: build a centralized dashboard for networking automation.

Instead of engineers SSH-ing into individual devices and running commands manually, they'd log in to this platform (that I would build) and execute their scripts from a centralized location.

On paper, it sounded incredible: better security, comprehensive logging, version control, and audit trails.

All the things you'd want in an enterprise environment. I dove in headfirst and started building immediately.

I mentioned the project to my manager, his response was... lukewarm at best. He didn't say no, but he definitely wasn't enthusiastic.

That should have been my first red flag.

As months passed, I worked on the project in relative isolation with the principal engineer, only sharing occasional updates with the team.

My manager would nod along during our 1-on-1s.

The team thought it sounded like a good idea in principle, but nobody was really invested in it.

No one was asking for demos, requesting features, or checking in on progress.

That should have been my second red flag.

But I pushed forward anyway. I was convinced this was going to be THE project.

It would have a great impact.

It would be used by networking engineers across the whole org, and it would take my career to the next level. I was wrong on so many levels!

After 8-10 months of work, I finally finished.

I scheduled a demo, walked the team through all the features I'd built.

I showed off the clean UI and powerful automation capabilities.

Their response was... fine.

People asked a few questions, wanting to learn how some features worked.

Others patted me on the back for my work, saying, "Nice job." And that was it.

Then I waited for people to start using it.

I waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Nobody used it. Not a single person.

Why wasn't anyone using this awesome thing I'd spent months building and perfecting?

The answer was painfully simple: I had built a solution to a problem that didn't really exist.

Sure, the networking team could have benefited from the dashboard, but they already had their own workflows and scripts that worked well enough.

They weren't crying out for a new platform.

Nobody had asked for this.

I'd just assumed they needed it because it seemed like an obvious improvement to me.

What I also didn't realize at the time was that this was essentially a pet project for the principal engineer I was working with.

He wanted to see if it was possible to build.

It was more of a proof-of-concept than a production tool that the engineers actually needed.

Meanwhile, I thought I was building the next critical piece of our infrastructure.

As software engineers, we get incredibly excited about writing code and building applications.

That's what we do, it's what drives us.

But the "code first, think it through later" approach doesn't work, especially in a corporate environment.

There's no point in building something if nobody's going to use it.

That time and energy could have gone toward something that actually mattered.

This is precisely why product managers exist.

They help you figure out whether what you're building is actually worth building, whether there's real demand for it, and whether it solves a problem people genuinely have. (Side note: we have a fantastic podcast episode with a senior product manager at Microsoft that dives deep into this—I highly recommend checking it out.)

Before diving into any project at work, it's important to understand the work. Ask yourself:

• What specific problem does this solve?
• Who is asking for this solution?
• How many people will actually use it?
• What alternatives already exist, and why aren't they sufficient?
• Is this the highest-impact thing I could be working on right now?

Without clear answers to these questions, you might end up exactly where I did, with months of work that lead nowhere.

These days, I always write a project document before taking on any significant project or feature.

It forces me to think through the problem space, validate the need, and get buy-in from stakeholders.

It's a simple practice that could have saved me a year of misplaced effort.

I actually have a similar framework I use for personal projects and side ventures.

The questions are slightly different, but the principle is the same: always validate before you build.

I'll be sharing that framework, along with a lot of other practical resources, inside the Code Room once it's launched.

Thanks for reading, and see you next time!

Uma