Cautionary Observation: New Hotness Syndrome

— 3 minute read

Over the last year or so, I've seen a lot of new devs learning bleeding edge tech, which is awesome. But I have some concerns.

Learning to patch 3-5 services to make a to-do list app is a great way to test out new tech and understand the fundamentals of the tech.

However, my concern is that companies that have been around for 5+ years. Already have all that stuff built out. They have their Database structure nailed down. They have authentication figured out. Finally, they probably don't have the bandwidth to rebuild their application with the new hotness tech stack. The goal is to keep the applications running and money coming in the door.

Working with "legacy systems" is a delicate dance. There are so many companies out there building on older tech that finding developers who know or understand that tech is becoming harder to find. Especially with LLMs and AI tools straight up spitting back React code. Having to explicitly ask for a different framework or code snippets (sometimes it is faster to just use Stack Overflow or the docs).

Another worrying thought is that newer developers will convince managers that they need to rebuild the app using the new hotness cause some tech influencer said so. This takes a TON of bandwidth from the engineering/design teams, as well as a pretty big business bet.

Some questions to think about

Does the rebuild with the new hotness provide users a much better experience so they will stick around and possibly pay more?

Are we only asking to build with the new hotness because the developer experience is better?

Can the business take on the MASSIVE PROJECT of porting everything over?

What happens when the project takes twice as long?

What happens if we go mega viral and that one endpoint we have gives us a $100k bill for the month?

What if the people suggesting the move to the new hotness leave halfway through the project?! (YIKES!)

I worry about the future of developers. I hope it's mostly because of being stuck in tech Twitter circles. I could be wrong here (I hope I am wrong).

RISKY BUSINESS

Companies that have been around for 7-10 years choose tools much more carefully than a greenfield startup. There is a risk of picking the new hotness. What happens when, 18 months after implementing the new flashy tool and they go out of business? OR even scarier 10x their prices and you have to pivot back to the way things were originally built.

Final Thoughts

My concerns are that developers just coming into the field are focusing on developer experience instead of focusing on the user/paying customers using the product.

Also, learning old tech can be valuable, giving you the tools to work with legacy systems, meaning companies will seek you out.

Yes, it does feel harder to get a web dev role right now because the level of complexity has increased 10x, and companies no longer believe they have the bandwidth to level up junior talent (that's a whole other post).

What matters is understand what the tools you are using are doing. Be able to job from framework to framework and language to language. Being locked into the new hotness, will cause more pain down the road for you.