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Ask HN: I got duped into working on legacy code, should I leave?
11–20 of 126 posts
Re: Ask HN: I got duped into working on legacy code, should I leave?
#12If you were truly lied to, then at the least you should out the company because this is unacceptable - especially given that they had you move across the country for this. If they don't face any consequences for what they did, then they'll continue to exploit others like they did to you.
Re: Ask HN: I got duped into working on legacy code, should I leave?
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's difficult to be proud of anything I'm doing :). Whenever I propose a design for something, I'm told to do it the fastest way which is usually a bad hack. I'm amazed the code works at all. The stack traces are more than twenty deep sometimes. I can't stand to look at it for more than 20 minutes without a break. I need to be more careful next time I'm looking for a job
The stack traces are more than twenty deep sometimes. Haven't counted but I think this is totally not unusual when I work on Java which I consider a modern stack.
I should clarify that's over 20 deep of our code , not counting all the framework stuff.
Re: Ask HN: I got duped into working on legacy code, should I leave?
#14I actually enjoy working on legacy code and improving it. I'm not suggesting you should enjoy it, it's just there's all kinds of engineers. The company should be hiring someone who does enjoy that sort of thing, and I suggest you look for another job that is closer to things you enjoy doing.
Re: Ask HN: I got duped into working on legacy code, should I leave?
#15Walk away, please. It's clear that you hate your job. Do it now before you regret it anymore.
Re: Ask HN: I got duped into working on legacy code, should I leave?
#16If all you've got are React and Typescript, you may be better off learning how to modernize old code. There's a glut of Javascript-only programmers. What's the old code written in?
Re: Ask HN: I got duped into working on legacy code, should I leave?
#17What's the legacy codebase, if I may ask (unless it identifies the company too much)?
Re: Ask HN: I got duped into working on legacy code, should I leave?
#18What's the legacy codebase, if I may ask (unless it identifies the company too much)?
Some of it is so obsolete and unique it would probably identify the company :) . The rest is slightly less old, MS webforms.
The webforms stuff isn't much better because the code quality is the worst I've ever seen. Adding features and fixing bugs is a stochastic process because you never know what will break.
Usually fixing a bug will expose an old fix that was done improperly for the original even older bug, forcing you to undo multiple levels of hacks to implement your own. It's nightmarish
Re: Ask HN: I got duped into working on legacy code, should I leave?
#19If you were truly lied to, then at the least you should out the company because this is unacceptable - especially given that they had you move across the country for this. If they don't face any consequences for what they did, then they'll continue to exploit others like they did to you.
It's too small a company to maintain my anonymity. Small enough that it's unlikely to burn any fellow HN readers if that makes it any better
Re: Ask HN: I got duped into working on legacy code, should I leave?
#20Tough place to be in, and it sounds like you need to extract yourself as quickly as you can mindfully do so.
Get yourself into the right mindset for interviewing and demoing your side projects, line up some interviews, and go. When you've got an offer on the table, make the jump.
Alternatively, if you have several months of living expenses as a cushion in the bank, you could find some freelance clients and then quit.
Focus on the future, stay hopeful, and get out of there. If it's only been a few months, consider not even listing this job on your resume.