What will you do with the no-longer-effective programmer?

Question

A programmer on your team is great at maintaining the old legacy system. But the company has switched to a new technology/platform.

What do you do with the no-longer-effective developer?

I guess you could tell him to commit ritual seppuku. Saving that, perhaps he could be helped with getting up to speed on the need system. — BobbyShaftoe, May 15 '09 at 05:10
@BobbyShaftoe: Nice joke, but actually doing this can cause civil or even crimininal liability in some jurisdictions. — sharptooth, May 15 '09 at 05:13
What your question doesn't tell us is what your legacy programmer thinks of this problem, therein lies the answer, I suspect. — Benjol, May 15 '09 at 05:13
Programmers are nothing special. Just like anyone else. You let them go where the wind blows. — jbasko, May 15 '09 at 05:17
You're talking about me, aren't you? What have you heard?! What are people saying!??! — AmbroseChapel, Nov 20 '09 at 00:28

score 12 · Accepted Answer · answered May 15 '09 at 05:11

12

Try to smoothly move him to the new technology/platform - first give him small assignments, then bigger ones, then move him completely.

If he's a good programmer he will learn and adapt, if not, explain to him that he will have to think of another position - either in the same company or in another one. It's business, not his playground.

answered May 15 '09 at 05:11

sharptooth

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Being able to adapt to new situations is a sign of a good programmer, so if they can adapt to the new system easily then you should definitely keep them. – Gordon Gustafson Nov 20 '09 at 00:34
@CrazyJugglerDrummer: I somewhat disagree with you. You can have a great c# developer who isn't that interested in moving to php and ultimately tries to recreate asp.net in php (or vice versa). Doesn't mean they aren't a good dev; just that maybe they are hoping management will see the error of their ways and recant. – NotMe Nov 09 '12 at 00:20

score 7 · Answer 2 · answered May 15 '09 at 05:12

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Presumably the company is still in the same business so this guy would have years of hard earned domain knowledge which could be leveraged in a technical/project management or BA role. Also, if you have existing clients that are reluctant to move to the new platform he'll be invaluable in a support role as none of the new guys will understand the legacy stuff.

answered May 15 '09 at 05:12

ninesided

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Companies seem to lose domain knowledge all too quickly - every effort should be made to keep knowledge in the company – Fortyrunner May 15 '09 at 05:28

score 3 · Answer 3 · answered Nov 19 '09 at 09:44

People can become 'no-longer-effective' for a variety of reasons ranging from loss of enthusiasm, personal problems, disillusion with the company or management, fear or weariness of technological change, inappropriate use of recreational drugs, etc, etc.

Presumably they were once valued and effective employees. A humane response is to find out what the problem is and then find a way to make that person feel good about themself and their job again, so that they can once again help the enterprise become productive. A person in the position that you describe is obviously not happy about now being unproductive or being seen by other, luckier or more talented colleagues as 'no-longer-effective'.

So I don't like the way your question is framed, as if that person has become a problem and a burden: it lacks humanity. If you phrased it this way, the answer might become clearer to you more quickly.

"I find that I'm no longer an effective developer and I'm scared that I'll soon be unemployable. The world has changed around me. What can I do to get my employer to help me through this and bring back my sense of worth and self-esteem?"

PS I'm 52 and have managed to keep at the cutting edge, mainly through contracting and always using new technology, but I see a lot of people in the position you describe. They're human beings before they are programmers or employees.

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered May 15 '09 at 05:11

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Tell him to learn the new technology, and provide a reasonable amount of time and help to do so.

answered May 15 '09 at 05:11

Matthew Flaschen

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score 1 · Answer 5 · answered May 15 '09 at 05:12

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If you can't train him on the new system, you will have to let him go. Or you could promote him to "project manager" and wait until he screws up, then fire him.

answered May 15 '09 at 05:12

Erich Kitzmueller

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score 1 · Answer 6 · answered May 15 '09 at 07:32

I think that until you have old software in production, you always need guys with knowledge of the old platform. Imagine if all people that can work on your 20 year old cobol program are gone away, and one day the customer call you telling that something is wrong..... I've already seen this situation before ;)

Speak with the member of the team, explain to him that the company is moving towards different tec/language/platform etc, and offer him the possibility to have courses or training material to keep up to date with company business.

If he do not want to spent time to learn new stuff, you can always try to use him in different areas. Experience is always important, even in technologies you do not use.

Suppose you work for a company that work in visual basic .net, you have two programmers to choose from, the first has 1 year of experience with visual basic .net, the other has 15 years of experience in low level C++/assembly programming. I probably will hire the second one, even if he does not know anything about visual basic, he surely have great amount of experience to share.

alk.

score 1 · Answer 7 · answered May 15 '09 at 07:54

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Keep him, for at least two reasons:

If the old legacy system is still in production, he is still competent for maintaining it.
He surely knows better than anybody not only how the old system works but also what it does in its most hidden parts. This knowledge is greatly valuable when specifying and designing the new system. Your guy has a role to play in building the new system, even if he is not involved in new technology.

answered May 15 '09 at 07:54

mouviciel

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+1 - "but also what it does". Programming aside, knowing where logical pitfalls were the first time around is good knowledge to have. Or so I tell myself and those around me. – Assembler May 15 '09 at 08:03

score 0 · Answer 8 · answered Nov 09 '12 at 00:16

There are several factors here:

Size of the company
Likelihood of returning to the old tech
Willingness of the employee to switch to the new tech.
Company's perspective on the value of employees

If you are talking about a small company (<10 people); it is probably far better to cut bait and search for new talent than to spend time retraining that employee; both for the company and that person. Companies that small can't afford having unproductive people on payroll for very long.

For a larger company, the other 3 items take precedence. If there is even a hint of going back, then keeping that person is pure insurance. Likewise, if the employee is enthusiastic about moving to the new tech (and ways of doing things) then they can bring all of their past experience to bear on forging ahead.

Finally, if the company actually values their employees they will attempt to encourage that person to mold themselves into the new environment. Be careful here though, encouraging an employee who has no interest in change doesn't work out for anyone.

I've seen this issue go both ways. In one case an employee was happy about the switch and spent vast amounts of their own time getting up to speed; they were ultimately able to provide a lot of insight and value.

I've also seen those who went along with the tech change kicking and screaming: they should have been let go much earlier than they were. However, the company felt an obligation to keep trying with them. I ran into one such person a year after they finally cut him: he was far happier in his new job.

score 0 · Answer 9 · answered Nov 20 '09 at 00:30

The obvious, non-funny answer, is to give him training. Not give him a book and tell him to learn the new system, but give him proper training, send him on a course, have him learn the system from the people currently using it, shadow them at their work for a while, ask questions and so on.

score 0 · Answer 10 · answered May 15 '09 at 07:10

The best approach is proactive: make sure to give employees programming legacy systems some percentage of tasks that involve new technologies. This makes them more valuable to the organization, and increases their job satisfaction. What's not to like about that? ;-)

And if you are the person involved in legacy code, do spend time learning new technologies, on your own time if you have to.

If you can't directly apply what you learn to your legacy code, you can always leverage newer technologies for peripheral software engineering tasks such as source code control, configuration management, bug tracking, project management (eg, the Scrum approach to agile project management), documentation, support, and so on.

score 0 · Answer 11 · answered May 15 '09 at 07:44

Aside of what has been said, I think you should also consider whether or not the legacy system has back up value. Especially if you have just made the move.

Consider the hypothetical scenario below:

Step 1. Implement brand new shinny tech.

Step 2. Move legacy tech programmer to whatever else (or fire)

Step 3. Discover a critical bug in new tech, or vital data/processes supported in legacy system but not by the new one.

Step 4. Oups...

If the guy has been "great" there are very reasonable chances he will be able to learn the new system. He may not know the technology involved, but he does know the purposes & features of the system. He knows what the system does and why, you just have to show him how.

Now of course, if he really can't get it and that you are sure that the legacy system is ready to be donated to a museum...

score 0 · Answer 12 · answered May 15 '09 at 08:02

You have asked this question, means you are in a dilemma, means you like this guy's work and you did say that he is good with the legacy code.

One who is good at one thing can be good at others too (I believe so)

Tell your programmer that CHANGE is inevitable and tell him to start change his technology and set a realistic and mutually beneficial goal and enforce the schedule stringently.

If he can adopt he will survive else he will learn to find a new job. [Note: My comments and suggestions are what I though would help you but it does not guarantee 100% success.]

What will you do with the no-longer-effective programmer?

12 Answers12