My Boredom-Made Toy Project Got Officially Adopted at Work
After work, I made an internal deployment script out of boredom, and it ended up being adopted as the company's official deployment pipeline.
At first, I just made it as a lightweight alternative to Jenkins. Then one day, my team lead sent an email saying, "I actually tried it and it's pretty good. Can we use it for other teams too?" Suddenly, it went through code review, security checks, and documentation... Just like that, a side project turned into company work.
Additional thoughts:
- Documentation is 80% of internal services. No matter how good the code is, if you can't explain a single main branch strategy, it won't get adopted.
- Check compatibility with company tools in advance. We had a rough time with LDAP integration.
- If you just build something and sit still, no one will use it. One demo is more effective than sending 100 emails.
They asked me to give a tech-sharing session on the same topic next week, so I'm making a PPT. I'm honestly more nervous about the presentation. Has anyone else had a toy project officially adopted inside their company? Share your story ㅋㅋ
7 answers
Agreed, the 80% documentation is a real fact lol
Good luck with your presentation lol
I've been through something similar—built an internal tool that got adopted, and honestly, a single demo to the neighboring team was 10x more effective than any documentation. But once it's officially adopted, you're stuck maintaining it... So congrats, but looks like you're in for some work lol
Well, at this level it's not a toy project—did you already make this during work hours? Can you really achieve that kind of quality only after work?
Internal tool compatibility is really important. We once built something without realizing it didn't support SSO integration, and later had to tear the whole thing down... LDAP is probably a similar case. Still, if it's officially adopted, the company can take the time to document and review it, so it's actually a good opportunity. For the presentation, you just need to structure the slides well!
I feel you on the struggle with LDAP lol
They say it's a Jenkins alternative, but in the end it's all documentation and security checks... Is there any difference from just using the existing Jenkins? Wouldn't it have been better to make it a Jenkins plugin? Considering long-term maintenance.