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Good post. But I’ve definitely learned more as an engineer from architecting greenfield systems from scratch vs working at a big corp where I had no say and oft
by rajacombinator 8y ago
Good post. But I’ve definitely learned more as an engineer from architecting greenfield systems from scratch vs working at a big corp where I had no say and often no need to know about large parts of the architecture I was dealing with, since I was just tinkering on small cogs in a huge system. (Very impactful tinkering, mind you.)
- jqcoffey 8y agoThanks! And in rereading with your comment in mind I should probably have moderated my "learns more," to something more like, "learns different things, but not necessarily less."
- arandr0x 8y agoI have the reverse experience : I did tons of technically challenging greenfield projects that were pretty much using my IQ, and didn't start building skills and work habits (the stuff employers actually pay for) until after I was made to also maintain one of the greenfield projects. I haven't and will never be what people tend to call a purely maintenance programmer, but the parts of my job that interact with existing systems are more challenging, more important, and teach me more (from looking at the patterns in existing code) than the greenfield parts. Where the misconceptions come from is it's easier to be "good enough" when you do maintenance, so a lot of people don't try to understand the existing context, don't interact with non-technical people, and don't stretch themselves to understand the business, because they mistakenly think their job is writing code.