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If it was true that the only way to get "paid" is to push boundaries, 99% of everyone working in IT would be out of a job. Kurt Vonnegut once said that "the pro

by hnarn 6y ago

If it was true that the only way to get "paid" is to push boundaries, 99% of everyone working in IT would be out of a job. Kurt Vonnegut once said that "the problem with the world is that everyone wants to build, and noone wants to do maintenance". I'm reminded of that quote daily working in the software industry -- the people "pushing boundaries" are a tiny minority and if they were the only ones working our modern world would come crashing down in an afternoon.

anonymoushn 6y ago
You can hardly expect people to talk about all the maintenance they did in their performance review
- dolmen 6y ago
  Why? Work should be balanced between creating new code and maintaining existing code. And managers should value both.
  - anonymoushn 6y ago
    Because the company's internal rubric for performance reviews awards 0 points for this kind of work.
  - jokethrowaway 6y ago
    You answered yourself. Maintenance is seen by business as a cost, innovation is seen as potentially bringing more money. The incentives are all wrong and that translate to engineers (and teams, and companies) chasing features and not fixing bugs. A rewrite is often the only way of getting enough resources to fix up things.
  - bluesnowmonkey 6y ago
    They should value both but just don’t in my experience. Building a system can get you promoted. Performing maintenance to keep it running generally will not. Doesn’t matter if the maintenance project demonstrates a higher level of proficiency than the original development. Doesn’t matter that it’s extending the life of a system providing known value, as opposed to building something with theoretical value.
  - wccrawford 6y ago
    Of course they should, but it just doesn't seem to work out like that. I was basically pushed out of my previous job because I was the bug-fix guy and liked it. When I was the 'new stuff' guy, I got big raises every year. When I moved to being the bug-fix guy, and other people were the 'new stuff' people, suddenly I stopped getting good raises and barely met inflation. Even my coworkers were heaping praise on someone who I knew was over-complicating things because he was doing new stuff. As I was leaving, a system that I had rewritten twice was up for another rewrite for more functionality. I would have loved to do it, and I knew I could. They gave it to someone else. I heard, 6 months after I left, that they failed and gave up on the rewrite. I am absolutely certain I could have done it again. Getting a new job got me a 40% pay raise. It's not that I wasn't still worth a lot more every year. It's that they couldn't see it because it was all maintenance, and not shiny new stuff. I still prefer bugfixes, and I still rock at them. But I end up doing mostly new stuff and don't say anything because I know how that goes.
- isodude 6y ago
  It's what we do at least. More than 60% of the work is maintaining old code/systems.
- Ekaros 6y ago
  Why? Maintenance can easily be quantified. Fixed x number of issues, implement y number of feature request/changes. Limited downtime to z amount of time by doing following actions...
- IggleSniggle 6y ago
  ...why in the world wouldn’t you talk about the ways you made an application better, more resilient, or heck, just able to continue operating?? No, I don’t want my local government official to build a new damn road. I would clap and love them for fixing the one I drive on everyday! Even better if they do it in a way that’s going to last for 100 years instead of 10, and that’s the way you brag about maintenance work.
- nthj 6y ago
  Yes, put it in terms of churn mitigation, compliance, security, and data integrity and you can absolutely sell maintenance at your performance review
- qznc 6y ago
  Programming is creating a "Hello World" program. The rest is debugging and maintenance. ;)

by hnarn 6y ago

anonymoushn 6y ago

You can hardly expect people to talk about all the maintenance they did in their performance review

dolmen 6y ago
Why? Work should be balanced between creating new code and maintaining existing code. And managers should value both.
- anonymoushn 6y ago
  Because the company's internal rubric for performance reviews awards 0 points for this kind of work.
- jokethrowaway 6y ago
  You answered yourself. Maintenance is seen by business as a cost, innovation is seen as potentially bringing more money. The incentives are all wrong and that translate to engineers (and teams, and companies) chasing features and not fixing bugs. A rewrite is often the only way of getting enough resources to fix up things.
- bluesnowmonkey 6y ago
  They should value both but just don’t in my experience. Building a system can get you promoted. Performing maintenance to keep it running generally will not. Doesn’t matter if the maintenance project demonstrates a higher level of proficiency than the original development. Doesn’t matter that it’s extending the life of a system providing known value, as opposed to building something with theoretical value.
- wccrawford 6y ago
  Of course they should, but it just doesn't seem to work out like that. I was basically pushed out of my previous job because I was the bug-fix guy and liked it. When I was the 'new stuff' guy, I got big raises every year. When I moved to being the bug-fix guy, and other people were the 'new stuff' people, suddenly I stopped getting good raises and barely met inflation. Even my coworkers were heaping praise on someone who I knew was over-complicating things because he was doing new stuff. As I was leaving, a system that I had rewritten twice was up for another rewrite for more functionality. I would have loved to do it, and I knew I could. They gave it to someone else. I heard, 6 months after I left, that they failed and gave up on the rewrite. I am absolutely certain I could have done it again. Getting a new job got me a 40% pay raise. It's not that I wasn't still worth a lot more every year. It's that they couldn't see it because it was all maintenance, and not shiny new stuff. I still prefer bugfixes, and I still rock at them. But I end up doing mostly new stuff and don't say anything because I know how that goes.
isodude 6y ago
It's what we do at least. More than 60% of the work is maintaining old code/systems.
Ekaros 6y ago
Why? Maintenance can easily be quantified. Fixed x number of issues, implement y number of feature request/changes. Limited downtime to z amount of time by doing following actions...
IggleSniggle 6y ago
...why in the world wouldn’t you talk about the ways you made an application better, more resilient, or heck, just able to continue operating?? No, I don’t want my local government official to build a new damn road. I would clap and love them for fixing the one I drive on everyday! Even better if they do it in a way that’s going to last for 100 years instead of 10, and that’s the way you brag about maintenance work.
nthj 6y ago
Yes, put it in terms of churn mitigation, compliance, security, and data integrity and you can absolutely sell maintenance at your performance review
qznc 6y ago
Programming is creating a "Hello World" program. The rest is debugging and maintenance. ;)