Ask HN: Please help a frustrated Mid-Career (?) Developer!

You are still pretty green. Keep working on it.

Sorry, but that is the majority of softare development. While you may believe all your previous accomplishments were really great, there is most likely someone looking at your code thinking how frustrating it is to work on the codebase. I think it is way easier to start from scratch than take an existing project and move it forward. When you start over, you can build a ton of momentum. You can hold all the complexities in your head. You rarely have the same problems existing solutions have because existing solutions have users that have learned the system and have a set of expectations.

I'm not trying to belittle your previous work, while at the same time you should realize that your frustration with maintenance is somewhat belittling as well. It is simply a different kind of problem that takes a different set of skills and talents to do well. If you consider maintenance in this way, it can be just as rewarding and help further your learning. Likewise, if you are doing maintenance, you are working on software that had some level of success. No one will ever ask you to change a codebase no one uses. You can learn a ton from a codebase that has been around for a while. You see the parts that were bolted on and how that impacts the future, but also how the tradeoff of a more flexible design was actually not necessary.

I'm not trying to be negative, but rather challenge you to change your mindset. I maintain a huge amount of code and it is a huge pain in the neck at times. That said, I also realize that my ability to continually dive into new parts of the code has become easier through time. Even if I do have to read the 1000 lines of code, I'm finding that the process of reading code and making guesses where to read next has become more efficient. Likewise, I've tooled my environment to help me search for leads when solving problems with the code. My perspective on writing new code is radically different because there is a very clear understanding of how I could do a better job for the developer that looks at the code in the future.

In short it can be really frustrating to maintain code, but at the same time it is something that needs to be done. I also believe it can be something done very well. If you see it as a healthy challenge I think you'll find the feelings of burnout will subside and you can take pride in changing that one line that ended up helping save people massive amounts of time and money.

I did a stint as a maintenance programmer. I was proud of it, then. I'd worked on code written by McArthur geniuses and the worst PHP monkeys -- no matter how complex the code was, no matter what language it was written in, no matter which backend database, I took pride in being able to figure it out, re-architect it if necessary, and fix it.

I didn't feel like I was going to seed; I was learning new (old) languages and systems all the time and I even got the chance to help on a few research projects, work with machine learning experts, etc.

I found, however, that I just got $h1t on by management. I wasn't perceived as being productive, they were always complaining I was too slow and too expensive. And I was slow and expensive because maintenance programming is slow and expensive, particularly if you're the guy who'll clean up any mess, no matter how bad.

"Actually it lasted until I left the employer I was at."

Key takeaway.

New development and maintenance are two very different development tasks in my opinion. Maybe you are discouraged because you are going through a brand new learning curve which you thought you had mastered and are now proven otherwise?

I definitely agree with everyone here recommending to take on side project and work on things in your spare time. Every job I ever got was because of skills/tech I gained on side projects (because I could do stuff with tech I though would become relevant...and it often did).

Relying on your job to teach you all you need to know is a sure way of becoming technologically irrelevant in 5-10 years. Your job will primarily tech your organizational stuff like working in teams, consistency, timeliness, playing politics etc. Even if they send you to any sort of training, those classes are usually a joke.

Learning your trade you really have to do in your own spare time. I easily (easily!) spend 20+ hours a week on my own stuff which I hope will land me the next position.