- this code generates more than 20 million dollars a year of revenue
This is GOOD!
Thsi means this project is important.
There WILL be budget for this.
You need to find out two things:
1. What is the PROFIT margin?
2. HOW does this generate revenue?
If you can increase profits (or promise to) by either making it easier to generate more revenue (onboarding woes of new customers / sales UI, etc) or a bigger margin, you'll be golden.
- it runs on PHP
This is not necessarily bad, check ylour code wars at the entrance.
- it has been developed for 12 years directly on production with no source control ( hello index-new_2021-test-john_v2.php )
THIS is one of the things that need to be remedied - source control NOW.
Get a professional course on git for all devs, add some nice dinner for teambuilding.
- it doesn't use composer or any dependency management. It's all require_once.
This needs to be adressed.
- it doesn't use any framework
This needs to be adressed.
- the routing is managed exclusively as rewrites in NGInX ( the NGInX config is around 10,000 lines )
This needs to be adressed!!!!!!!
- no code has ever been deleted. Things are just added . I gather the reason for that is because it was developed on production directly and deleting things is too risky.
Source control should take care of some. The rest is on you sitting with the product manager to find out WHAT is the core, what needs to be removed, what features need to be kept.
(bunch of horrible code smells that ALL need to be adressed.)
- team is 3 people, quite junior. One backend, one front, one iOS/android. Resistance to change is huge.
OK... if the team is junior, you need to lead.
And WTF is an iOS / Android developer doing in your team?
- productivity is abysmal which is understandable. The mess is just too huge to be able to build anything.
This business unit has a pretty aggressive roadmap as management and HQ has no real understanding of these blockers.
YOu need to sit with business and make them understand the blockers, the challenges, the timelines, AND the opportunities that your solutins will bring.
We had this experience (as a client) when we went around to find a venue for our wedding (100 people).
The restaurant that got the bid wrote us a personalized letter, included information on the town and hotels that would be available for guests nearby, etc etc..
The rest just sent short notes.
As a leader in an IT department, I asked for proposals for a 40K software review.
All of them responded with no-brainer copypaste letters.
All but ONE, who took their time to make a good, detailed offer.
They called me, we met for an hour with their experts, THEN they made a thoroughly thought out offer.
The problem is not that it will wipe out ALL need for human labor, but a lot of it.
Just truck drivers - millions of people getting unemployed. And don't paint a too romantic picture... a lot of them will NOT be qualified for another job.
We are also using software to enable people to perform tasks normally done by experts.
Drafting architectural plans is a recent example. The hand - drawing has been replaced by CAD software, and a LOT of architects now do these themselves or with little staff in-house.
I work in the financial sector, and supportive applications will enable "normal" client supporters to sell Investment packages.
Of course WITHOUT them really learning shit about investments .. result: Less experts needed (first step)
Second step:
Automated consulting / online use by the customer.
But first, I'd take apart some assumtptions:
- this code generates more than 20 million dollars a year of revenue
This is GOOD! Thsi means this project is important. There WILL be budget for this.
You need to find out two things:
1. What is the PROFIT margin? 2. HOW does this generate revenue?
If you can increase profits (or promise to) by either making it easier to generate more revenue (onboarding woes of new customers / sales UI, etc) or a bigger margin, you'll be golden.
- it runs on PHP
This is not necessarily bad, check ylour code wars at the entrance.
- it has been developed for 12 years directly on production with no source control ( hello index-new_2021-test-john_v2.php )
THIS is one of the things that need to be remedied - source control NOW. Get a professional course on git for all devs, add some nice dinner for teambuilding.
- it doesn't use composer or any dependency management. It's all require_once.
This needs to be adressed.
- it doesn't use any framework
This needs to be adressed.
- the routing is managed exclusively as rewrites in NGInX ( the NGInX config is around 10,000 lines )
This needs to be adressed!!!!!!!
- no code has ever been deleted. Things are just added . I gather the reason for that is because it was developed on production directly and deleting things is too risky.
Source control should take care of some. The rest is on you sitting with the product manager to find out WHAT is the core, what needs to be removed, what features need to be kept.
(bunch of horrible code smells that ALL need to be adressed.)
- team is 3 people, quite junior. One backend, one front, one iOS/android. Resistance to change is huge.
OK... if the team is junior, you need to lead.
And WTF is an iOS / Android developer doing in your team?
- productivity is abysmal which is understandable. The mess is just too huge to be able to build anything.
This business unit has a pretty aggressive roadmap as management and HQ has no real understanding of these blockers.
YOu need to sit with business and make them understand the blockers, the challenges, the timelines, AND the opportunities that your solutins will bring.
And post COVID, budget is really tight.
No it is not. See above.