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How To Navigate a New Codebase in 4 Steps
As a software engineer, few events are more daunting than your first day in a new role where you are introduced to a massive codebase. If you’re lucky enough to have a formal on-boarding experience, then perhaps a more senior member has walked you through the codebase, tech debt and associated gotchas with the code you will now help shepherd. Even so, it can be difficult navigating the patterns used, unique edge cases and how the project fits into the larger context of the business.
I’ve worked with at least 6 different codebases over the past 7 years from job switching and contracting. Here is the system I use when I want to begin contributing quickly in a new codebase and gain a basic understanding of how things are working.
1. Pick An Area to Focus On
A few years ago I worked in a particularly complex codebase with several APIs written in different languages and a few other client side apps. Honestly, it was nearly a year before I had some level of comfortability with all those repos and the general data flow. If you are a UI developer, focus on the front end apps you will be working with on a daily basis. Conversely, backend devs likely won’t get much benefit from digging into the internals of a component library used in the front end.
