I recently started a new job, and I feel like the team is already enough to fill the project requirements. There are couple of senior engineers, and the remaining are mid to junior level engineers. I joined as a senior engineer, but I feel like its a battle trying to lead or find any work that can reach my scope. It's like cat fighting for scarce work.

Its been still 1 month, but I guess maybe I should give it time. Any tips on how to overcome this?

Don't worry about getting work, just start learning their systems and code base. You can always watch for code reviews, pair program, or check the backlog for up-coming work and start exploring the code.

Do they have a tech-debt backlog? Those are always fun...

Go through and do some dirty work for the team. Update all the docs, clean up all the warnings, automate more of the build and publish steps, create a database seeder, clean up a tricky part of the code. While these activities are mostly not senior level work, it will be work that will help everyone on the team. Harder work will come with time.

Yes, if it’s contract or consulting work no one cares. They put you there to collect a profit on your wages. Become a great story teller during standup. If you are in industry it’s more challenging because they put managers above you that have no guidance, don’t keep the pipeline full. I’m dealing with that now. I try to step up to help and they see it as a challenge to their job. It’s sad. I created a full maturity model of how we could develop our department. The first reaction was they thought it was amazing. Then the backlash came. I was trying to get us to a roadmap. I’m honestly trying to position the manager to steal all my work so we can develop a pipeline of work. The last thing I want is to manage 20 peoples problems. I’m perfectly happy with him doing his job.

DOCUMENTATION. And put you name as the author.
In my experience, that is where a lot of orgs. struggle, and you can bring a lot of value by improving it.

One thing you can do is ask your manager or project lead for the success criteria they’re expecting, in a 1-1 meeting or book them for a quick meeting.

That’s what I did when I was in a similar situation, I asked something to the effect of: ”In six months, if you are to think this was a great hire, what would I have done?”

In my case it was very informative because I learned there an expectation that I need to identify areas for improvement, in the system, and come up with solutions for them.

I'm in a similar situation. The team hired me while expanding but their backlog doesn't have enough work that leverages my hands on technical skills and I don't get to lead any interesting work. The team manager actually pushes the work that suits my skillset onto other teams in the org. After almost a year of trying to positively influence the way the team works I'm out the door the minute I can.

My advice is:

1) Read through all the excellent comments and see can you make a plan based on them.
2) Start looking around for alternative roles now. It doesn't hurt to look and you're far better off jumping on an opportunity soon while your skills are sharp than after ten months of boredom.

I felt the same way and it’s a constant struggle of staying motivated on some boring tasks with the occasional highlight when I move to a more interesting task. I do some mental jiujitsu - sometimes I look for the opportunity to sharpen my sword - trying to use the task as a way to learn a new skill or software or do a deep dive on a technique. I also work on a bunch of personal side projects to keep learning some things I feel I should be learning to stay up to date. Finally, I’m also constantly preparing proposals and helping out other teammates or collaborators on other teams both to network, learn and increase my visibility for future opportunities. Even if my proposals don’t get accepted , it lets management know I’m not a code monkey and I’m always seeking something more challenging and purposeful - as hopefully demonstrated in my proposals. Basically , I stay proactive and try to make my job fit my needs by suggesting and volunteering for certain tasks I want to do.

However, the key is to always stay current with your assigned work and finish them in a timely manner. If you don’t do that - all the extracurricular activity will be looked on negatively because your manager is under pressure to get certain work done on their team and they’ll be wondering why are you doing this instead.

Just remember they are paying you to be there. The work might be slow now, but when it picks up you might be missing the slow days. Just remember you are being paid to be available not necessarily to be 110% utilized.

A little confused by the comments here. I’ve never seen or heard “wow…he documented the he** out of that code base built by someone else so let’s keep him or promote him in his role”. While being helpful in supporting the team is great, you need to find ways to contribute greatly to the projects YOu are assigned.

Schedule a meeting your manager and get a clear list of expectations / SMART Goals that you can expect to be judged on by the end of the year. Meet and exceed those goals by delivering ahead of schedule, with best practices in code for your organization and well documented. If there is still bandwidth, find the junior developers that are open to teaching and begin to lead them to the elevated level you are performing at. Finally if there is still bandwidth, network with other business units in your org and find opportunities to make your boss/bosses boss look good by you helping them meet an OKR or deliver code ahead of schedule.

I sometimes feel a bit low or don’t get a good feeling about my next day at work. :( please provide any tips

I've seen this a lot, where a team that isn't run very efficiently adds people. Sometimes they are doing it for the expectation, sometime they know someone else is leaving, and sometimes they think that just adding people will make things faster.

You are there now however, and you want to give value for your salary. So why not tackle some of the teams technical debt? Or improves their test automation, or something along those lines? The other senior people will know if there are things that need doing.

When I am bringing a new person onto one of my teams, I often start them on bugs to begin with, so they get a feel for the codebase. You could take on the bugs in the backlog.

what you need to do is document the architecture and all the connecting components. then you will identify chokepoints and points of failure. then u will get the field failures and outage root causes and show the team that the root causes are so obvious from the architecture. then show the management team how much $ they lost because of the quality issues. then u devise a roadmap to fix them. then u may get terminated because u exposed the engr manger's mistakes..

Part of being senior is looking out for new projects, stacks or ways of doing things better. That said, familiarise with their code base and stack so you can improve things from the inside out.

This may be a case where you're seeing things to do as below your skill level. If you're senior, there must be code reviews, design/architecture, and a few other places to use that expertise, but I wouldn't be above pitching in on work that does not "reach [your] scope".

2 things to understand -
1, You are going into an established team with an established pecking order.
2, People play safe by banking on people they know or know by reputation.

Most engineers will want "Proof of Value" before collaborating or giving you some piece or module.If you take a step back and analyse, you would also do the same.

There are ways to break that ice, offer to debug or fix any pending issues or bugs and by doing so, you'll also understand the codebase and hopefully will prove your worth to 1-2 engineers.

Second option is to take a part of the code and see if you can optimise, enhance or refactor it to be better performant, faster response times etc.

After doing this, show it to some of your team mates.

This goes a long way in establishing your value and hopefully some trust from your team.

Starting a new role takes time; focus on understanding team dynamics and identifying gaps. Build trust by mentoring, collaborating, and suggesting improvements. Communicate with leadership to align expectations and showcase your value.

I recently moved to the USA and looking for the Job as project engineer. I am having total 8 years of experience in project management then also here I got rejection mail mentioning that we can’t hire you because you are not having experience in the United States.

At a more macro level, look at the core company business and marry the business need (problem to solve) and technology capabilities. It’s preferable than just being an order taker and elevates your value to the company. The task for a technologist is to understand how a company makes money and all the elements that contribute towards it. You can provide more value than even the most senior business person because in addition to your business acumen you also are the technical expert and uniquely capable of providing that marrying value.

If it is a new job reality but consider approaching leadership and share how you are feeling underutilized.
If it is a Day One company they have additional needs elsewhere and can reassign you to where you add the most value.
I have personally taken this tack 4 times in my career and 3 times landed into more fulfilling roles that not only added value to my company, but increased leadership visibility if my Think Big, Ownership, and team player style.
The one time I was left in my role I made due by being the best at what was needed or assigned.
This requires tact on your part- but if handled well, Leadership will notice.

Maybe the team is able to handle things now, but good managers plan for the future. I was hired onto a shockingly senior team when I joined Boeing. All senior level people and they had a combined work experience of like 300 years (not joking). However that meant they were all within 5 years retirement and within 5 years they all had retired.
I didn't offer a huge amount when I joined but I took their place and by the end a few of us had successfully filled their shoes. As they left the team was able to adapt and continue functioning with no interruptions.
What does your team's horizon hold, are they expecting retirements, new projects, expansion? Most serious companies don't hire without a business case justifying the position.