Is it common to be handed a code base, be told "that's yours now", and not be told what needs to be done with it? Like not given a spec, not given a list of change/problem reports, just "have this, it's yours, go do stuff, don't break anything"? I am trying to determine if this is a blessing or a curse.

Possibly both. Get to know the code, draw diagrams, reverse engineer it and get to know it, if it's bad then start planning refactor sessions

Follow the Boy Scout rule and leave it better than you found it ... You will grow and be a better coder because of it and you sure as hell won't make the same mistakes that you find in the code base

Make it your own 😄

that's what happens to the new guy... also try your best but it will be hard if the task need to be done fast... always use the project to learn stuff don"t try to do stuff that you don t understand just to make someone happy...

had a legacy project that was dumped on someone. poor guy never saw it coming. had to work on it myself at various points, as have about 8 others, you can really tell when too many changes in coders has occurred