> The wrong type of super-long-tenured engineer is just going to be defensive and full of excuses about why something was built one way, even when the pain of u

> The wrong type of super-long-tenured engineer is just going to be defensive and full of excuses about why something was built one way, even when the pain of using what they built is dragging down the whole organization. I'm pretty guilty of this. The way I see it, I can either tell someone now why things are, or I can let them waste time figuring it out for themselves. If you stick around long enough, eventually you become partially responsible for a collection of projects built by people who came, did a passable job, then left. I'm not keen on spending months rewriting a system just because the current one has some issues. And if it needs a new feature/update, I have no problem tossing a turd on the pile of crap. Granted, I see the appeal of rewriting things. You get to spend 12-18 months building a new project the way that you want it, then leave once it is built and the maintenance responsibilities kick in. These people have never had to actually maintain software before, so they have no idea how to even write maintainable software.