I’m a contractor, so the senior devs on the team dig through the backlog and hand out tasks from that usually. They don’t seem like very important tasks, just usually have been open for a long time, current main tasks have been open two years and three years respectively before assigned to me.
I see two possible reasons for your situation. One is that the company is turning to contractors to fill in gaps in their knowledge/experience, which is why everyone else has no clue how to tackle these tasks and why they get assigned the easy ones.
The other possibility is that the senior devs are gaming the metrics, letting the employees knock out easy tasks while the contractor is stuck with untangling the knots of the more intractable tasks.
I sometimes do things (cleanup, refacs) off-ticket / not part of the ticket. It can be a light alternative when other stuff is complicated and demotivating. Depending on your environment and team/contract setup, simply doing it could be more difficult though.
If it serves your satisfaction and productivity, and is good for the product, then it’s not wasted. Not everything has to be - or even can be - preplanned.
I’m a contractor, so the senior devs on the team dig through the backlog and hand out tasks from that usually. They don’t seem like very important tasks, just usually have been open for a long time, current main tasks have been open two years and three years respectively before assigned to me.
I see two possible reasons for your situation. One is that the company is turning to contractors to fill in gaps in their knowledge/experience, which is why everyone else has no clue how to tackle these tasks and why they get assigned the easy ones.
The other possibility is that the senior devs are gaming the metrics, letting the employees knock out easy tasks while the contractor is stuck with untangling the knots of the more intractable tasks.
I sometimes do things (cleanup, refacs) off-ticket / not part of the ticket. It can be a light alternative when other stuff is complicated and demotivating. Depending on your environment and team/contract setup, simply doing it could be more difficult though.
If it serves your satisfaction and productivity, and is good for the product, then it’s not wasted. Not everything has to be - or even can be - preplanned.