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You're not a senior engineer until you've worked on a legacy project (2023)

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Re: You're not a senior engineer until you've worked on a legacy project (2023)

#181

Post by foobarchu »

marcinzm wrote: post #130
seanalltogether wrote: post #31

You're also not a senior engineer until you've been forced to adopt the coding style and practices of that legacy project. A lot of younger developers like to come into a new project and slap on the latest frameworks or coding practices that they've picked up recently, without acknowledging that breaking the standards of the project lead to higher mental load to maintain that code over the long term.

> A lot of younger developers like to come into a new project and slap on the latest frameworks or coding practices that they've picked up recently, without acknowledging that breaking the standards of the project lead to higher mental load to maintain that code over the long term. Using the latest framework improves their future job prospects. Whatever company they work for will lay them off in a split second and wo…

Personal pride? I flat out don't respect a developer who refuses to do anything right because of nebulous hatred of any and all employers. No they don't care about you, no that isn't a good reason to go full apathetic.

Re: You're not a senior engineer until you've worked on a legacy project (2023)

#182

Post by belthesar »

gorbachev wrote: post #30
namdnay wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the only better experience than "working on a greenfield project long enough to watch it become legacy and see the good and bad consequences of past decisions" is working on a second greenfield project long enough to see that drastically overcompensating for all the bad things from the first one is not the right solution either :)

I keep telling people v1 of anything always sucks. One of the tells of an inexperienced engineer I use is how much they disparage the previous team's work.

This harkens back to Chesterton’s Fence. It’s always worthwhile to interrogate why things were done the way they were, especially when first coming onto a project. Knowing the why of a decision is essential to understanding if and how it should be changed. Especially if the reason is “this is what we had the time and knowledge to do at the time.”

Re: You're not a senior engineer until you've worked on a legacy project (2023)

#183

Post by scarface_74 »

MassiveQuasar wrote: post #62
regularfry wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on your goals, though. Depending on the company, that can be a very good way to be treated as a cost centre to be minimised.

Yes, let's minimize the only dev working on legacy software.

I don’t think the parent comment is saying that should be the case. But the way that corporate culture works, it is definitely a career killer.

Re: You're not a senior engineer until you've worked on a legacy project (2023)

#186

Post by bluedino »

jmclnx wrote: post #4

And I would add, you are not an "expert" until you had to reverse engineer a program who's source disappeared a decade or more ago :) But an interesting article for modern times.

Or the logic created by other staff that's long gone.

"This is wrong!"

Well, we actually do it that way because Frank told us to do it that way

"Frank isn't even here anymore! That doesn't make sense! Let's just do it the right way."

Three Weeks Later

Re: You're not a senior engineer until you've worked on a legacy project (2023)

#187

Post by philipov »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #176
philipov wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Boredom is in the mind, not the task. Things aren't boring, people are. An important type of intelligence is the capacity to find what's interesting about a task that others lack the imagination to see. One needs to be able to create their own interesting solutions rather than expecting them to be handed down on a plate.

Boredom is lacking stimulation. Even the most cutting edge task can grow boring if you need to plumb with it dozens of times over a year. Just because you can find what's unique doesn't mean it stimulates you. That's the exact issue with why neuro divergent individuals are demonize: they don't take as much interest with people as "normal people" would. >One needs to be able to create their own interesting solutions r…

> You should tell that to every old manager I had.

They sound like boreful people. If you find you have become boreful, there's a good chance you may be experiencing burnout or depression, which are nasty diseases, but still ones that afflict the subject, not the object. Nothing is boring but for the person who perceives it that way.

Re: You're not a senior engineer until you've worked on a legacy project (2023)

#188

Post by seba_dos1 »

pmarreck wrote: post #98
kerkeslager wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have hobbies. The most interesting work is going to be 10% interesting and 90% not interesting. In most cases it will be less interesting than that. Prioritizing "interesting" work means you'll always be exploited by the companies that can sell you on less pay, less benefits, less time off, less respect in exchange for some pittance of perceived novelty. Don't fall for this trap.

tell me you don't have ADHD without telling me you don't have ADHD

For what it's worth, I find it much easier for my ADHD to debug and improve existing code than to greenfield - it's actually interesting. Debugging is like a detective's work with small dopamine hit at each step of unraveling the situation and a huge reward once you finally grasp it. It's best to do on someone else's code, so you don't get too frustrated with your past self ;) Greenfielding provides some rewards too, but once I'd greenfielded anything remotely similar already there's a lot of forcing myself to do it around the beginning and end, where there's plenty of unrewarding work to do. For greenfielding to be fun and easy, it needs to be a completely new area that I had no previous experience in, but that doesn't tend to end up with excellent results.

Re: You're not a senior engineer until you've worked on a legacy project (2023)

#189

Post by andyjohnson0 »

tobr wrote: post #32
joezydeco wrote: post #20

As an embedded engineer in a new position I always volunteer to take up an old crusty legacy product that nobody else wants to touch. It's a quick education into how the company approaches projects and all the ghosts they had to fight along the way. All the business logic is there, and sometimes it's even documented. And once you have a semblance of knowledge about how the thing works and how to make fixes, you've bu…

Haven’t you also often made a moat between yourself and doing literally anything else more interesting at the company?

As a senior engineer your job is to take on the unglamorous hard problems, both technical and organisational, that are holding the team back. Doing this, and being seen to do it, early-on in your time with an employer will be somewhere between appreciated and expected.

Re: You're not a senior engineer until you've worked on a legacy project (2023)

#190

Post by cpeterso »

urda wrote: post #92

For readers, programmers, and engineers stopping in here asking "ok what can I do to better myself here?" I really recommend "Working Effectively with Legacy Code" By Michael C. Feathers. It is a top notch read, and helps newcomers (and vets alike) approach these legacy systems.

Marianne Bellotti’s “Burn It With Fire: Manage Aging Computer Systems (and Future Proof Modern Ones)” is another good book about working with legacy systems, though its focus is more about managing system evolution and modernization than specific code techniques.
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