Ask HN: How a junior can handle a big bad coded project
I started working 2 months ago in my first job as a programmer in a medium-sized company, before I had only done personal projects for 4 years. I live in a place where there is little work of this and much less that they hire you without regulated studies as is my case. So I can't afford to lose it until I gain some experience.
They are assigning me quite delicate projects: making the cart change its price dynamically taking into account payment methods, and so on. At the same time they are wanting me to refactor how the order lines are processed to generate orders to suppliers or take it out of the warehouse, etc.
Some points that I find worrying added to the above:
- The way they have to upload to production is by taking the modified files in your project manually looking at the git log and uploading them manually with Filezilla renaming the original file with .old
- My supervisors don't check my code
- The project is too big to understand and is mainly written to barely hold
- I have to learn the logic of the company mostly on the fly because they give me vague explanations even when I ask for it
- The code is not documented
I would like to improve as much as possible as a programmer and do things with the least possible errors to endure as long as possible, but it is costing me a little more than I thought. I understand that I cannot demand much more of myself because it is a complicated project but I am afraid that my supervisors do not see it that way because of how they talk to me when I break something.
They have 2 years of programming experience and I suppose even less as supervisors / managers.
I wanted to ask you for advice on how to manage my situation and do my job as well as possible, I would greatly appreciate any advice or comments.