Ask HN: Do you ask to see the codebase before taking a job?
Every developer job that I have regretted taking could have been avoided by first asking to have an in-depth review of the existing codebase I would be working with.
But it seems to me that this is something very few people ever do?
I'm specifically talking about poor coding standards, spaghetti code, monolithic pieces of code that nobody understands and is too scared to changed for fear of breaking something, not enough tests or the wrong kinds of tests etc. The kind of stuff that people say "we really ought to tidy this up" and everybody agrees, but it never gets done. Especially for a large scale application with an existing user base - these kind of poor coding and architectural decisions can be very very time consuming and difficult to change.
But it seems to me that this is something very few people ever do?
I'm specifically talking about poor coding standards, spaghetti code, monolithic pieces of code that nobody understands and is too scared to changed for fear of breaking something, not enough tests or the wrong kinds of tests etc. The kind of stuff that people say "we really ought to tidy this up" and everybody agrees, but it never gets done. Especially for a large scale application with an existing user base - these kind of poor coding and architectural decisions can be very very time consuming and difficult to change.