It seems to depend a lot on your team and your manager. It's the first place I've worked where the vibe is: "you're clever: find something useful to do" from my very first day.
My only advice to people at BigCo is to make sure you have a good reason for doing whatever it is you're doing. Your boss telling you to do something is not always a good reason to do it.
And make sure you have some kind of metrics that show your work is important. If you're told to do something that you don't think is important, make sure you have metrics showing that your work is more important and do that.
I just started recently and was considering leaving for a startup, but have decided to stay and see if it gets better (I have only been at BigCo for few months). Mainly I feel like I'm not really needed, and it's a long existing and complex system so I can't propose some project of my own that easily. Many changes require multiple teams input etc. Feels slow.
Thanks for the advice, I will definitely keep it in mind.
I would either build credibility at your local team first (seems slow given the setup you describe) or find another group that is more dynamic. Look for energetic team leads that run impactful projects, talk to them (face to face) and ask what would it take to join their team. My 2c. Good luck
If it turns out your manager was right (which is likely given you've only been there a few months), you'll at least get more context to understand why. You can use that context next time
It took me around two years in to start feeling comfortable setting direction and priorities at a team-wide level. Of course, I was making my opinion heard long before that, but it was just that, an opinion.
At only a few months in you're still an unproven quantity. Don't expect to be getting the most important projects just yet. Take whatever you are given and knock it out of the park.
I like my team and manager, I just don't think they have a lot of time for me or time to think about what I'm assigned and whether it's worth doing. Lots of new ppl on the team recently. It's also possible that I'm just not asking enough questions. I think it is a bit of both.
I understand the initial project you're assigned may not seem terribly important. But that's because you're new and you don't really know how things work yet, so they can't assign you anything really complicated. Do the initial not-quite-busywork successfully, and more important and interesting work will come along.
I'm also not a very social person, and randomly chatting with people around the company for project ideas is something that I'm seemingly incapable of doing.
Will this cause me to fail at my job? How do I learn to be more proactive with these kinds of things?
If necessary (but only as a last resort) spend an hour each day increasing test coverage. That is just something you can do that will probably also yield further ideas.
Second, if you're at google, get a mentor. They probably have an internal tool for that, maybe even something hr-like.
But (to use my example) "efficiency" is relative. It requires a good mental model of what fits into what and how. So, to solve for that, you'd focus on absorption, and taking-in as much of the environment you can in as much detail as you can - oh, and focus on the most insignificant things the most. (The idea is to stretch your attention span and make it grow.) Endeavor to absorb at the same rate on day 100 that you do on day 1 (ie, replicating the way you react when things are new/interesting). Not perfectly achievable (I don't think), but that's the approach I've used to get my brain going in the right direction.
As for sociability, that's something that needs to be practiced in its own right to get stronger, like attention span. A bit like learning to use a new tool, you can't immediately be fast at it without some initial purpose-less practice. (Always fun to bootstrap those kinds of things...)