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Comment by mikekchar | Hacker News Reader

Tips on surviving a rewrite in a mid-large sized company.

1) Get yourself placed on the "Legacy team" that is supposed to "minimally support the application while we transition to the new system".

2) Do whatever the hell you want with the code base (i.e., refactor as much as you want) because nobody cares about the boring legacy system.

3) Respond directly to user/customer needs without having to worry about what upper management wants (because they are distracted by the beautiful green-field rewrite).

4) Retain your job (and probably get a promotion) when they cancel the rewrite.

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Alternatively, tips for not surviving a rewrite in a mid-large sized company.

1) Get stuck on the "Legacy team", as expensive contractors are called in to produce the rewritten version from scratch in an unrealistically small fraction of the time the original took.

2) Be told you can only fix bugs (with more layers of short term hacks), not waste time with refactors that have "no business value" for a code base that will be scrapped "soon".

3) Don't add any new features, to prevent the legacy system becoming a perpetually moving target that would delay the beautiful green-field rewrite even longer.

4) Hate your job, and watch your coworkers leave in disgust, further starving the team of resources, until you end up quitting too.

My last two IT jobs ever were both for businesses which cancelled huge rewrites after being sold to another company. Someone up top pitched the businesses as white elephants ripe for massive cost savings half-way during the rewrite.

The programmers with the political skills to get put in the "Rewrite team" will have had their jobs in the "Legacy team" protected in case of project cancellation. Or they will knife you in the back to get their old jobs back -- they will know about the cancellation and have plenty of time to maneuver before you know what's going on.

There is another path to survival:

1) Get on the new team

2) Ensure to get into the more interesting tech modules

3) Improve your CV

4) Use your soft skills to mingle with everyone and be aware of where the wind blows

5) In case of iceberg ahead, jump ship to a better job taking advantage of the new skills

There is yet another path to survival:

1) Do a startup

Or, simpler

1) Quit job 2) move to the woods 3) shun all electrical devices 4) mediate until you become one with the universe

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