I Dream of 1% Time
Google have 20% time. Engineers can work on what they want (on projects that would most benefit Google) for 1/5 of their time.
It’s a balance of exploiting resources and exploring bets to enable the company to move and improve into the future.
What a great, balanced idea.
The problem is that companies no longer value this balance. Even Google have been destroying their Googly culture at an ever increasing rate since 2015, and you’d be lucky to avoid doing the work of three employees in amongst the layoffs and chaos. Exploration 20% time is available to you, after you have completed 100% of your work.
The 20% Time
The stuff of legend. Spend 80% of your time completing features and delivering, and 20% exploring new ideas and working for the future. This sort of thing had the wonderful side-effect of attracting the very best staff as well as providing hits like Google Stadia (that’s a joke, people).
This is an application of the well-known (I know it, at least) explore-exploit trade-off.
Honey Bees
Honey bees are rather great. In order to make honey they send scout bees to find sources of food. When those scout bees return they perform a dance in order to show the best source of food, and its location. Cool! You’d think that all bees would rush to the source of food to maximise the return, exploiting the current solution to the problem. In most companies, such an algorithm would be rewarded. Yet 20% of bees ignore the dance, and do their own thing. No PIP for these bees though, as they go off looking for the next source of food. This is a good trade off, as it ensures the hive both exploits current solutions and explores future opportunities. (Source: https://www.wellsassoc.co.uk/the-explore-exploit-trade-off/)
So if even bees know you can’t invest all of your energies exploiting current sources of reward, surely tech companies know the same? Since many companies copy the FAANG way of life, surely this has become a way of life all around the world of tech? The answer will likely not surprise you.
The Reality
I’m lucky if I get 20% of my day without being dragged into another “ceremony” or meeting to discuss something (which could have been an email). The long time to switch branches is brutal, and that time could be used to do anything (at all) productive.
I’d love to explore new tech. Yet I’d settle for exploring the codebase without a blocker.
At times companies I’ve worked with have mountainous volumes of tech debt. A grand exploitation initiative is far away from the reality of software engineering.
At one job I didn’t even have time for tech debt, let alone some grand exploration initiative. And trust me, the tech debt was mountainous. I’m talking the digital equivalent of finding out you’ve inherited a house from a distant uncle — only to discover it has load-bearing mold. But sure, let me squeeze in some “innovation time” right after I battle whatever DevOps surprise was deployed overnight.
And this shortage of time isn’t rare — it’s practically the default. When tech debt stretches sprint after sprint with no reprieve, how does an engineer meaningfully “explore”? You can’t. The only exploration happening is discovering how many places in the codebase your predecessor copy-pasted the same broken logic.
The funny part? Leadership still expects exploration. They want you to stay up-to-date, learn new tools, embrace AI, rethink architecture patterns, and magically keep a finger on the pulse of the entire industry. Meanwhile, you’re barely keeping a finger on the keyboard because you’re stuck in another hour-long standup that should’ve been a half-minute Slack message (see: meetings eating productivity, which is well-supported by research ).
Exploration takes time, and time is the one thing modern tech companies refuse to give engineers — unless they work for free. And you already know how I feel about that (hard-core programming culture is bad for the industry, see Value #1 ).
What most companies really want are these:
“Have innovative ideas!” (but do it outside your normal hours)
“Stay ahead of new technology!” (but don’t take time away from delivery)
“Reduce tech debt!” (but do it invisibly so no one has to prioritize it)
“Be proactive!” (while we bury you in reactive work)
Exploration is a luxury reserved for teams with breathing room. Most of us are in organizations that treat the engineering team like an orange — they squeeze until juice stops coming out and then act shocked when pulp starts falling everywhere.
Conclusion
The truth is, if you want people to explore, you give them explicit space to explore. Otherwise it’s a bedtime story management tells to feel innovative.
Until then?
I’ll keep dreaming of that mythical 20% time. You know, right after I clear the unexpected blockers, decipher the vague requirements, chase the fourth reviewer, sit through two standups a day, and clean up the tech debt I accrued simply by doing my job.
Exploration can wait.
Apparently forever.
About The Author
Professional Software Developer “The Secret Developer” can be found on Twitter @TheSDeveloper.
The Secret Developer once tried to schedule 20% time into a sprint. Management scheduled a meeting into it instead..