Ask HN: Inherited the worst code and tech team I have ever seen. How to fix it?
First off, no, a full rewrite is not only not necessary, but probably the worst possible approach. Do a piece at a time. You will eventually have re-written all the code, but do not ever fall into the trap of a &quot;full re-write&quot;. It doesn&#x27;t work.<p>But before you re-write once line of code - get some testing in place. Or, a lot of testing. If you have end-to-end tests that run through every feature that is currently used by your customer base, then you have a baseline to safely make changes. You can delete code as long as the tests pass. You can change code as long as the tests pass.<p>Once you are at that point, start picking off pieces to modernize and improve.<p>Also, respect the team. Maybe they aren&#x27;t doing what you would, but they are keeping this beast alive, and probably have invaluable knowledge of how to do so. Don&#x27;t come in pushing for change... come in embracing that this beast of a codebase makes 20 million a year. So talk about how the team can improve it, and modernize their skills at the same time.<p>Because if you walk in, saying, &quot;This all sucks, and so do you, lets throw it out&quot;, do you really have to wonder why you are hitting resistance?