The joys of maintenance programming (2011)
Maintenance programming for pay can be rewarding <i>iffffffffffffffff</i> management has a deep understanding of and appreciation for the task. There can be a lot of joy and satisfaction in adding tests, fixing edge cases, fulfilling user needs, "quality of life" improvements, optimizing. <i>Honing.</i><p>My experience is that this is almost never the case.<p>Generally, management does not understand or appreciate why it's a slog, why you might want to refactor this or that, etc.<p>Obviously a lot of this falls upon the engineer. It's your job to communicate and demonstrate. Helps if you have other engineers backing you up and presenting a unified message. Also helps if management is technical enough to understand what you're saying instead of simply believing -- or <i>not</i> believing -- you.<p>But maaaan. Uphill battle! I'm burnt out on it. I've decided I need to seek greenfield stuff. Maybe forever. But definitely for now.