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It's the opposite. Any decent programmer can make a nicely architectured MVP. It is maintaining the code, refactoring it and implementing new feature requests not envisioned by the original programmers that takes real skill.

Stupid analogy time: Building a shiny, new house; easy. Retrofitting a 300 year old house with 1000gb ethernet wiring everywhere, while keeping the original character of the house and with minimal disruption to its inhabitants; HARD.

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> Stupid analogy time: Building a shiny, new house; easy. Retrofitting a 300 year old house with 1000gb ethernet wiring everywhere, while keeping the original character of the house and with minimal disruption to its inhabitants; HARD.

Actually, I thought it was pretty apt.

Simply not true when the design is not trivial.

I'm giving interviews with system design, I'd say that the majority of programmers who are decent cannot actually architecture anything well enough. And it doesn't matter if they're given more time, they don't have the training/experience for it. (They'll only learn the impact of their decisions later, eventually painfully).

On the other hand, they may be able to develop it if handed and led through a proper architecture.

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