I messed it up

What My Work Is Like?

I’m a Data Engineer and my day involves moving, cleaning the data around. The work is harmless as long as the requirements are well-defined. Some of the projects we take up comes with complete details. Some others come with some gaps, especially the hackathon-turned-projects.

How Is This Work Differs

I was part of data extraction team working towards a hackathon. This went well. The business is content and that leads to contract turning it into an actual project. During hackathon we used Excel files to fasten the process. But the production grade project should have API integrated and we worked towards it.

There lies the problem. The API lacks a proper documentation. This leads to talking to the one developed it, to get to know how to access the API and work with them. Still there were some gaps and those were reverse engineered and the data is bought to its place.

What Went Wrong

First is the Assumptions.

The actual project required entire country’s data. I assumed the hackathon holds the actual country’s data and went for UAT. What I came to know later is the hackathon used only a part, not entire country’s data.

Second is the lack of review.

We skipped review as I was confident the things are in place. I was humbled and the UAT made me realize I was overconfident. The squeezed timeline could be another reason.

We went ahead with planned UAT with some 10-15 business people keying in the cities, the application is not returning anything.

UAT was a failure. The scale of failure is what startled me. The whole country data points was near 18 000, but we went with 1 900 data points. It was not only failure but a disaster.

Implications

I am worried. All the good will that I have accumulated could be wiped out.

Also, I was expecting a progression in work. This failure could further delay it.

More than that, I might be scrutinized and doubted by stakeholders.

These are all possibilities. Time alone can tell.

My next Steps

I’m going to continue what I’m doing, but with more awareness. Being more careful. Avoiding the assumptions and review more frequently to avoid the situation.

Let’s see how it goes.