4 ms·
Considering a typical HCoL junior dev costs about ~100k/yr, if you can have one junior dev rewrite your entire codebase in a year, you'll breakeven in cost afte
by kenhwang 7y ago
Considering a typical HCoL junior dev costs about ~100k/yr, if you can have one junior dev rewrite your entire codebase in a year, you'll breakeven in cost after 2 years. Considering a senior dev costs 2-3x that amount per year, as soon as you have one of those involved for an entire year (odds are, if it's business critical software you will), your breakeven point comes out to just under a decade worst case.
I think that just illustrates how risky rewrites are. Very few companies at that scale can just rewrite everything in that timeframe using that little resources. Many companies don't even have codebases that will survive a decade.
- arcticbull 7y agoThats all true of course assuming it'll take (<>?) a full year to do.
- ltbarcly3 7y agoIf you have one junior dev rewrite your entire codebase they'll never finish and the quality of the rewrite will be terrible. It's right in the definition of 'junior'.
- bradleyjg 7y agoThe fully loaded cost of even the most junior dev in a high cost of living area is going to be well above $100k/year. Gross wages are generally only 1/3 to 1/2 the all-in cost.
- caust1c 7y agoWe considered a few options before rewriting it. I've got a draft blog post about the process laying around, but haven't gotten around to getting it over the finish line. We definitely knew the risk going into it. Fortunately, it only took us 2 months to rewrite it. I think our strategy for the rewrite is directly responsible for the speed at which we rewrote it.
- aries1980 7y agoYeah, but junor from HCoL is not the only option, so why would you consider the most expensive one?