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Ask HN: I got duped into working on legacy code, should I leave?

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Ask HN: I got duped into working on legacy code, should I leave?

#1
I recently moved cross country to work on what was supposed to be a fairly nice, new stack. I love my new city but the job is killing me.

Its legacy code dating back more than 20 years. I'm afraid that my skills will rot if I stay too long. The code quality is also horrible and its making me hate coding.

The company talks about how we're just around the corner transitioning to newer stuff. After talking to some veterans, apparently it's been "right around the corner" for years.

I was hired for my React and Typescript skills/interest and it's been months with no signs of being able to use them. I'm not good with their current stack but I have no interest in learning it because its so obsolete. I'm beginning to think that they mislead new employees because otherwise they would ask for a lot more money or walk away.

I'm torn about my best course of action. I'm not good at my job because I don't know their tech. I'm not good with their tech because I hate it and I'm bitter that I was lied to. I can't mentally force myself to learn this ancient shit. On the other hand, they're paying me, so I owe them something right?

The best solution for me is definitely to just get a job somewhere else, but I've only been at my current job for a few months. Should I just stick it out and hope I don't get fired for underperforming?

Re: Ask HN: I got duped into working on legacy code, should I leave?

#4
Put in an amount of effort that you consider professional at work (by which I mean, put in enough effort that you're proud of yourself, even if you're less productive than you'd consider ideal for someone specialising in what they need). Use React on side projects. Look for better opportunities, and be more picky and curious about the actual work you'll be doing. You owe them no more loyalty or accommodation than they've shown you by misleadingly recruiting you.

Chalk it all up to career learning... Try not to get too personally invested or discouraged.

Re: Ask HN: I got duped into working on legacy code, should I leave?

#5
I remember when I got hired to work on old code for an autoshop program. I actually loved it... great job though it could be tedious, but the worst thing was the boss constantly micromanaging me. I couldn't stand it. We'd have meetings about fixing things and new code to be implemented, than he would have me email him [an outline of] everything said in our meeting.

Then he would critique it to exactly what he wanted me to know about what I should have gotten out of the meeting. I'd say I spent about 3 or 4 hours a day coding and the other 4 was pretty much dedicated to putting up with his antics. Every time he would come bother me, I'd lose my focus and spend 10 or 20 minutes just trying to get into that mindset again.

You can read more about that experience here if you are interested: http://www.confessionsoftheprofessions.com/the-opportunity/

Long story short: I ended up applying to other jobs because with $40k of student loan debt and being paid $12/hr, I just wasn't ever going to move out of my mom's house. When I told him I was going to be getting another job, he offered me double my salary to stay. I thought about it and knew that he was going to hold it against me for everything.

Towards the end of my time working there, he did give me a raise for what would last a week and allowed me to work nights, so I could work in silence, as a way to try and lure me to stay and give me the "experience" of making $24/hr. Unfortunately, he also installed spy software on my computer, and questioned me about why I was on YouTube all night (I had a playlist in the background) instead of doing my job. After that, I pretty much told him it wasn't going to work out because of his mistrust of me, and I cut my final 2 weeks short.

Anyways, I ended up getting another job and this one too -- I worked on a "cold client base" that was at least 2 years old -- basically, the company sold contracts in advance and never delivered, so I was hired to help them catch up. Managed to take their "cold client base" from about 140 accounts all the way down to about 32 accounts remaining. It involved some software and collecting data. We worked in Flash. Other companies were working in HTML5.

We had an in-house programmer working on an HTML5-based platform and it was amazing. Unfortunately, I got laid off before I got to learn the new program, but apparently, after 6 months, so did everyone else and the company went out of business. Had they just released that program and pushed it, I'm pretty sure they would have been able to stay in business, but such is life.

I currently work as a web developer for a large media corporation. No regrets and I've definitely earned my salary and raises over the years. If you aren't feeling it anymore, than start looking for a new job and go for it. You have programming knowledge so it is likely you can get a job in many different places. When you go, they'll probably find someone else. We're all replaceable, for the most part.

Go do something you enjoy and get paid to do it. No sense in wasting your life away not doing something you don't really enjoy.

Re: Ask HN: I got duped into working on legacy code, should I leave?

#6
Couple of questions to focus your decision making:

Did they pay for your relocation expenses? If so, is there a clause in your employment contract to pay it back if you leave within a given period of time?

Do you want to stay in your new city?

If you are unhappy enough to leave, then why not bail up the manager who hired you, tell them point-blank that they lied to you and you know that the "round the corner" talk is just window dressing. Demand more money for your pain, etc. You should only do this if you are willing to get fired on the spot. But it is what I would do.

Immediately start looking for a new job. I would not put this one on my CV. Just mark the time as time-off to do a bit of travelling and relocating to your great new city and now that you have settled in, you are looking for work.

Don't worry about it being shitty legacy stuff. I have even worked on mainframe Cobol for a while and although I hated it, I ended up learning about a new industry and then getting a job with one of their competitors. Every silver lining has a cloud.

Re: Ask HN: I got duped into working on legacy code, should I leave?

#7
post #4

Put in an amount of effort that you consider professional at work (by which I mean, put in enough effort that you're proud of yourself, even if you're less productive than you'd consider ideal for someone specialising in what they need). Use React on side projects. Look for better opportunities, and be more picky and curious about the actual work you'll be doing. You owe them no more loyalty or accommodation than the…

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

Re: Ask HN: I got duped into working on legacy code, should I leave?

#8
post #4

Put in an amount of effort that you consider professional at work (by which I mean, put in enough effort that you're proud of yourself, even if you're less productive than you'd consider ideal for someone specialising in what they need). Use React on side projects. Look for better opportunities, and be more picky and curious about the actual work you'll be doing. You owe them no more loyalty or accommodation than the…

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.

Re: Ask HN: I got duped into working on legacy code, should I leave?

#9
I've been in a similar situation once [0], though it was really my own fault rather than being duped. Quitting fairly soon (after 7 months, IIRC) was definitely the right thing to do. I did it without arranging for a new job first, which was probably not the smart thing to do.

[0] https://www.snellman.net/blog/archive/2015-09-01-the-most-ob...

Re: Ask HN: I got duped into working on legacy code, should I leave?

#10
post #4

Put in an amount of effort that you consider professional at work (by which I mean, put in enough effort that you're proud of yourself, even if you're less productive than you'd consider ideal for someone specialising in what they need). Use React on side projects. Look for better opportunities, and be more picky and curious about the actual work you'll be doing. You owe them no more loyalty or accommodation than the…

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

Not "proud of what you're doing", but "proud of how you're conducting yourself". Make sure you can walk out at 5pm holding your head high thinking "All things considered, I gave them good value for what they paid me today".

Also consider that "the fastest way which is usually a bad hack" is sometime the correct pragmatic approach for a legacy codebase that's in the process of being replaced. Giving them the benefit of the doubt, think about whether the elegant design is really necessary if there's a ground-up rewrite about to happen.

Even if it's demonstrably true that they've been "claiming" a rewrite is "just about to start" for a _long_ time, sometime's that's just as frustrating a thing for management as it os for the coders - management may well honestly have always believed this rewrite was supposed to have started 12-18 months ago, and that it genuinely is only weeks away from starting... Just like they believed last month and six months ago... I've _been_ "that manager" before (and I'm sure I will be again).

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