We were hired to build. Then left without direction. No strategy. No feedback. Just tickets in the void. If you’re deciphering priorities alone, this is your battle plan:

1-Communicating With Your Absent Boss

DO:

- Ask brutally specific questions:

• "Which 3 tasks should I deprioritize to focus on [X]?"
• "When you say ‘impact’, what’s your #1 metric?"

- Document their vague answers → follow up over email:

• "Confirming: You want me to prioritize [A] over [B]?"

- Bring solutions, not problems: 

• "The checkout bug impacts 12% of users. I can fix it by Friday if we pause [Y]."

DON’T:

- Accept "Just do your best" as guidance

- Wait for scheduled 1:1s to raise blockers

- Avoid open-ended questions - replace "Thoughts?" with "Should I prioritize A or B?"

2-Business Alignment in a Black Box

DO:

- Autopsy production incidents → They reveal real priorities

- Shadow customer support for 30 mins/week

- Study casually the company's decision makers' LinkedIn posts for obsession clues

DON’T:

- Trust roadmap PowerPoints over panic-driven Slack threads

- Ignore sales team rage – they’re the revenue canary

- Build features without asking "Who pays for this?"

3-Technical Leverage Without Permission

DO:

- Fix what’s quietly bleeding money (e.g., abandoned cart bugs)

- Automate the process everyone dreads (like release pipeline)

- Own the critical-but-ugly system

DON’T:

- Refactor code that isn’t actively harming the business

- Build "perfect" systems for hypothetical requirements

- Wait for approval to solve obvious problems

4-Collaboration When No One Cares

DO:

- Review messages/PRs for overwhelmed teammates within 24 hours

- Tag relevant people in docs with specific asks ("@team - does this match your needs?")

- Build reputation as the "human API" - give fast, useful answers to queries

DON’T:

- Hoard knowledge to feel important

- Ghost cross-team requests

- Let perfect teamwork prevent good-enough progress

5-Quiet Visibility Without Selling Out

DO:

- Let metrics tell the story - embed metrics in every commit/PR/report

- Write 5-minute postmortems for fixes

- Create 1-sentence win summaries for standups

DON’T:

- Spam channels with humblebrags

- Attend "showcase" meetings that don’t value anyone

- Expect credit for silent work (track it yourself)

6-Career Growth Without Mentors

DO:

- Master the system everyone fears (legacy monoliths, payments)

- Identify and bridge critical knowledge gaps in your organization within the scope of your role

- Help fix major breakdowns—it proves you're reliable

DON’T:

- Stop waiting for training budgets - create your own learning sprints

- Let your skills stagnate waiting for permission to learn

- Don't assume you'll move straight up - sometimes sideways steps give you more skills.