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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)

#231

Post by auahzbxkfkx »

philipov wrote: post #125
no_wizard wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Engineering isn't about working on the most interesting problems. It's about getting stuff done and management happy Truth is harsh, however this seems to be 100% accurate for nearly all cases of employment. Rarely do you get to focus on simply interesting problems and good engineering as a primary concern

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.

I’ve got some mulch in my yard that needs counting.

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

#232

Post by ninetyninenine »

quickslowdown wrote: post #129
ninetyninenine wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I should say not prevent it. But minimize it in the maximum possible way. I am sitting on a gold mine. But I can’t prove it. That’s the problem with this stuff. The industry moves horizontally with each design such that nobody knows if say the current design trend was better than the last. We go better or we go worse and nobody knows if it actually was. Maybe I am sitting on a gold mine. The problem is you’d never kn…

I'm not the OP, but I'll say that I don't believe you, because you're telling me you have The Perfect Solution, without providing even a hint of what that solution is. If I was skeptical at first, I'm now certain you're selling smoke & mirrors until you provide any evidence at all you actually have an idea here.

I literally said I don’t have a perfect solution and that you wouldn’t believe me. What I have is the best possible solution based on available solutions that we know of. I found the best way.

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

#234

Post by johnnyanmac »

philipov wrote: post #187
johnnyanmac wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>They sound like boreful people.

They have a job and family at the end of the day too. Not everyone has the power nor passion to try and and move a billion dollar corporation to care for people over profit.

>If you find you have become boreful, there's a good chance you may be experiencing burnout or depression,

I haven't has a full time job in over 18 months, so I hope I'm not burnt out.

>Nothing is boring but for the person who perceives it that way.

That's like saying nothing is ugly except for what people think is ugly. Boredom is personal and shaped by each person's experience, so I don't think framing it as a person for not trying hard enough is going to go too far in practice (nor is it productive to judge people based on how they prioritize their lives). Of course some things will be boring to one person and a life passion for another.We don't have enough time nor energy to try and find appreciation for every object and concept on Earth.

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

#235

Post by baobabKoodaa »

yohannesk wrote: post #95
thecleaner wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it also builds self-esteem. Well crafted dig.

I don’t think there was any dig implied. And I will second that it will add to self esteem. Specially during discussions if you have more understanding about the code you will have both better contribution and take away

Sure, when you succeed in understanding someone else's legacy codebase, it builds self esteem. When you fail attempting to do that, it does the opposite.

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

#236

Post by jbaber »

itronitron wrote: post #73
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.

"checkout project, reformat all source files, commit"

I've had innocents' IDEs do this to them. Fortunately it results in pull request rejected, not commit to master.

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

#237

Post by rr808 »

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…

This can go wrong, as I found. Management and Tech leadership are focussed on the new projects with latest technology - they pay the biggest bucks for these and no one really cares about the devs maintaining the old stuff - even if important. The second problem is looking for new roles you resume is filled with old tech rather than new stuff that is in demand.

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

#238

Post by Clent »

ilitirit wrote: post #227

Hard to disagree. I can usually tell what type of type of experience devs have by the snarky, dismissive responses I've gotten on various internet forums over the last two decades. e.g. "Oh but you would never have this problem if you performed proper code review" - Random_Rockstar_Dev_254 However not all legacy projects are bad to work on. If they're decently developed, then often you'll find that most of the pain i…

It feels like you're just finding other ways to describe people who are senior in title only which is far too common. Any senior that uses their title to justify a 'you can't tell me way to do attitude, is a senior in title only.

I think the term is the issue. Senior development means something more intrinsic than it does in other title, like a senior manager. I think what we're attempting to define is something closer to seasoned developer.

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

#239

Post by jessekv »

milesrout wrote: post #217
codegeek wrote: post #47

Legacy or not, I don't consider anyone really senior unless they have spent building and more importantly maintaining/fixing a system at least for 3-5 years at one single place and have done this at least 2-3 times across different companies. We all know that it is a lot easier to start a new/greenfield project with shiny tech etc. It is a lot harder to maintain especially once it is 2-3 years old and in production w…

No a senior engineer is someone with at least 3 years experience, haven't you seen any job ads?!

It's like credit cards. You start with senior and from there it's gold, platinum, diamond and so on.
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