[tppiotrowski]

Working on old but popular software is where legends are made. You need to be methodical about changes. How do you make changes in a million line+ codebase without breaking anything for millions of existing users? This challenge is reserved for the finest engineers on the planet. These are the people you want your desk near when you start your professional career as a programmer.

[baq]

this is simpler than it sounds - the process trumps any engineering stardom. the process is king. the process is love, the process is life, quite literally. getting any change in there isn't so much fine engineering as it is wrestling with layers and layers of process, where every layer has been added due to a monumental f-up in the past. it's an environment where getting any change committed into a repository usually takes weeks, unless one of processes for sidestepping the process is invoked.