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I'm a junior SWE and doing maintenance or working with legacy software is a big no for me. I realized this is mainly because I can't see the value these jobs wo

• Too 6y ago
  Working with a big legacy code base is an infinite source of teaching and knowledge, especially around system architecture; what works, what doesn't work, how the craziest workarounds can make something impossible possible, how APIs with the best intention got abused over time, value of tests and where to test, how to read code rather than just write code, and so on. Simply it gives you wisdom, rather than you reinventing the wheel to find things out along the way. I wouldn't want to do it forever but for a junior to try it out at least once is an important life lesson.
• DocTomoe 6y ago
  I'm a senior developer, and that would be a major red flag for me, which I would remember during our annual feedback time. Your statement is indicative of a junior who is unwilling to learn about the system and to do grunt work, which directly translates to due diligence and bug avoidance once it's feature implementation time. Do not underestimate the value in working in legacy code for learning how to do things, how to do them better, and how sometimes not following the hip technology fad or the more academic approach is the right thing to do.