Is this common?
Get a new SWE job / new project. Project is in a gross state of disrepair. Unit test suite fails. No github hooks for PR builds. The deployment job hasn’t been run in months and no longer works as the rest of the infrastructure changed. Nobody really knows how it works. People refer me to other people, and I eventually undust the hieroglyphics behind how the system is supposed to work. I don’t mind, since, because all of these things were broken, I’ve got to learn a lot about how the software development lifecycle is supposed to work on this artifact. A little worried nobody cared about these things. But that’s cool, because I do. #savingtheday #cleanupcrew #digitalplumber #archeologist
Huge red flag to change teams or leave the company.
I got a 50%+ pay bump to join a company with a far lower engineering caliber than my old gig (at least with respect to this particular project. It may not be company-wide). It feels quite odd. I like the new TC I have but I do feel like some of what I’m advocating for is babysitting. Regular devs should want these things too.
It’s common and remains a red flag. Be ready to leave in six months.
Can you explain more?
I'm with Amazon and Truecar. The only places I've been at with poorly maintained internal tools were places that were "revolving door" jobs. The fact that they paid considerably more is also a red flag. Companies pay more for good talent, but also when they can't get anyone else to take the job.
The people I’ve worked with have been with the company for years and it’s had low turnover (not that I could personally confirm that), if those are any positive signs.
Same for the places I'm referring to. Even at bad companies, some teams are less a dumpster fire than others. The question you need to ask is, "How did this get so bad and stay that way for so long?"
Lots of engineering is custodial