My main project got cancelled - How can I find new scope for me to work on?

Question

I joined Pinterest few months ago, and I was under the impression that I will be driving a large, high-impact project. I was hired with this project in mind, but due to external factors, this project has been deprioritized and removed from the roadmap.

This puts me in a vulnerable position as now I don't have major scope to work on. Here are my thoughts on how to remedy the situation:

Find new scope - I am doing this now, but this is tough as I'm pretty new. Unsure how I can find this on such short notice.
Change teams
Wait for the manager / lead to figure out a new large scope project for me
Work closely with my manager, so they can find a new project for me

Alex Chiou · Accepted Answer

Instead of trying to create an entirely new project, try to generate additional scope by expanding the scope of a current project. See what your teammates are working on, and see if there's an opportunity for you to tag along and majorly enhance or expedite the project in some way. I'm skeptical of changing teams as team changes are pretty thrashy, and there's no guarantee this won't happen again. Work closely with your manager to come up with a new project/resolution in general. No sane manager would just sacrifice an L5 engineer. Make it clear that it's a P0 for you both and follow-up every week. Another option is to loan yourself to a sister team that has the reverse problem: Too much work and not enough engineers. In a big company like Pinterest, I'm sure there's a team in this scenario; the goal is to find one as close to yours in the org chart as possible. I actually had to do this during my time at Robinhood, and it worked out great!

My main project got cancelled - How can I find new scope for me to work on?

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