Comment by JackFr
8 years ago
> they definitely need at least a year before they understand the problem space well enough for their offers of major architecture changes to be welcome.
I think there's a role for humility on both sides. In my current role, I was an experienced hire. After a month on the job my manager and his manager pulled me aside and said "What are we doing wrong?"
The interesting thing was that when I told them that I thought their module system was seemed backwards, the response was "Yeah, we know. It's a quirk of history that it ended up that way, and we've got a plan to fix it. Anything else?"
They very much valued a fresh set of eyes to ensure that they weren't missing something they had become house-blind to. At the same time, as a set of fresh eyes your attitude should be one of questioning, "Why are we doing it that way?" rather than "We're doing it wrong" or "This way is better".
Remember Chesterton's Fence.
Here's the trick: Every weird architecture exists for a reason, good or bad. If it looks wrong to a newbie, maybe the newbie misunderstands it, or maybe the business can't afford to build something better (and it's good enough as is), or maybe it really is wrong but the people who built it like it, so what good will come of you you trying to change it? Your newbie ideas only help if the veterans want new ideas and also your newbie ideas are better than their veteran ideas. That's possible but rare.
This is an excellent tool for the manager toolbox, thanks for sharing. Agreed that it’s great to get the fresh eyes benefits recorded/locked down.
The key is understanding that your teammates are probably pretty smart, you can learn a lot from them. You’re probably really smart, too, better to show your new team this with actions and quiet side conversations than showy pushes for unwelcome change, at least for the first year.
I do this every time we get a new developer, even a fresh-faced intern. Show them the basics of our project, turn them loose to go learn as much as they can, and then follow-up with "what did not make sense to you?"
Fresh eyes are incredibly valuable and you only get that once from each person before they become just as jaded as the rest of the team ;)