I was laid off from Amazon in October and since then I have been applying and interviewing with other companies. I hardly had 2 offers sometime in February this year from midsize to small companies.
I accepted an offer from the midsize company and joined in April. I have over 5 years of experience in Data Engineering. Since the day I joined I have been asking for tasks but I have nothing assigned to me. I am only watching tutorials and reading the technical documentation by my team. I have asked my manager multiple times about what projects he would like me to focus on or any bugs or small issues he would like for me to take up. He keeps saying focus on learning and understanding the domain.
Its been almost a month now and I still don’t have any project or focus area. I do get to learn a lot by reading, asking questions to team members on their work or just watching tutorials. However I am getting bored not having anything to motivate me. We have daily standups and they only ask me may be once a week what I’m up to. I do have my 1-1s with my manager but there as well he keeps saying the same thing.
Is it normal to join a company and have a slow start like that? When I was at Amazon I had plenty of things on my plate on week 1 itself. I am lucky to have a job in rough market but at the same time I feel like I am wasting time here.
Am I doing anything wrong here with asking for work repeatedly? Should I just wait out and work will come my way?
I’m based in the US