How f*cked does a code base have to be until you jump ship? I got a new job recently and been working there for about 4 months. It's a big company and there's ways to move around internally.. but holy cow the code is bad. It almost seems beyond the point of no return... Almost like a totaled car.

If they're paying you a lot to live in the swamp... might be worth it to some extent.

@N00bPancakes yeah .. the pay is great. But gosh darn.

@1nt3rn3tc0wb0y sanity is important too ;)

I just changed jobs because of this.

I was offered complete control of the project, 70% of my time to fix the problems, pay rise. I still left after much thought because colleagues producing such obvious low quality have no desire to learn.

@craig939393 that’s the thing, if there’s will to change consider it, otherwise, jump out that ship.

Depends if pay is great yet you have to work double and harder which hits your health then it just evens out. Determine if management is doing something. Or if you are at some level that have management decisions either to recruit or motivate people ask yourself if you are willing to give in to the obvious extra effort. Not everyone can be that bad? But to turn things from bad to good to great requires effort. Do you like that challenge to rock the boat to help find it's equilibrium or would you rather be the passenger who comes and goes? And it's totally okay to be a passenger :) just don't forget to set a goal to jump ship when you feel you have met your personal goals like maybe enough learning from the job or earned or save X amount through them.

@craig939393 yeah that's always the kicker.

Good co-workers make all the difference.

Websphere

I'd just do the job, and see it as an opportunity to not let job craziness get to you.... there gets a point where you'll just tire yourself out, letting that get to you.... There are people in all sorts of jobs - therapists, nurses, doctors in psychiatric hospitals who get burned out unless they do some sort of therapy, themselves. There's soldiers in battlefields constantly dealing with the dangers of their job... either way, I feel for you, and have been in a similar situation, working for a company with cruddy code I had to fix, but if the pay is good, that's WHY its good. they know they have issues and just need them fixed... hoping they get developers that will stick it out, and not let it get to them...... and DO NOT feel guilty jumping ship... its NOT for everyone.... some handle it, some don't.... but I wouldn't blame someone for looking elsewhere.

@N00bPancakes Actually, I think that’s precisely what he’s being paid for. 😬 A lot of people get paid to live in the swamp. And survive.

If it works,then as far as the business is concerned, you work with it. They care about working code, not clean code.

It sucks, but working with crappy code is just a skill you need to learn in this industry. It's one of these skills noone tells you that you'll need to learn, however.

@AlmondSauce I'm not sure about that... I haven't done any super in-depth estimates on velocity, but I honestly think we would be ~10 times more productive than we are now if the code didn't suck, which the business would certainly care about.

But yeah.. I guess it wouldn't be much of a job if it was easy..

@1nt3rn3tc0wb0y Sure, but getting the code to the point where it doesn't suck would presumably require a lot of work. That's not just a time cost, but also a great deal of risk - what if you introduce subtle but critical bugs along the way?

It may be worth it of course, especially given the potential pay off. But convincing the business is another story entirely - they almost certainly won't go for it.