NOTE: This is part of a "quick bites" series I'm trying out - for shorter, more frequent posts. Let me know if these are helpful! This is (intentionally) following the theme of the post: getting something out there rather than waiting for the perfect thing.
It’s that time of year again with holiday season coming up for a decent chunk of the world. Many tech companies implement code/release freezes to prevent outages due to bugs. As an engineer, it can certainly be challenging to stay productive without being able to ship code. Here are some things I’ve done to manage:
- prioritize so that the things that have crucial deadlines can merge well in time for the freeze
- use this time to work on the backlog of tests / comments / documentation / code cleanup etc
- take some time to prototype that fun idea I never got around to trying (works more than I’d like to admit)
- merge code as usual, but keep it all behind a feature flag and flip that after the freeze thaws
What tips/advice do you all have? I’m trying to gather tips for myself!