Legacy Code / Legacy Team Member

For organizations with a large legacy code base, high maintenance costs, onboarding difficulty, slow delivery cycles, and integration issues are common problems. These challenges often create inertia. Features go unreleased and deadlines are missed as teams struggle with outdated systems. Attracting and retaining talent becomes harder. Developers - both new and experienced - often prefer greenfield projects over legacy applications burdened by technical debt.

Introducing An Untapped Resource: The Legacy Team Member

Not quite a bus factor (the organization could get by without them), and not quite a kingdom builder (they aren’t focused on job security, they generally care about the organization), the legacy team member represents the continuity between the greenfield that once was, and the brownfield that is today.

Legacy team members are walking paradoxes, they might say “because that’s how we always did it”, but they are also human README files. They know why the code was written in VB6, and even if they don’t know how it works anymore, they know which functions not to touch.

They may hold on to the past, but they also understand its structure.
At their worst, they can resist change.
At their best, they provide crucial continuity and context.

They often are motivated for the best reasons. They care about the organization. They may be risk averse, but they want the organization to succeed. With the right support, they are a valuable resource to have on the team.

Sometimes what holds a system back is also what holds it together.

So what’s the answer? Vision. Without strong organizational vision, the legacy continues. Vision provides the why that orients people and systems. Without it, legacy becomes the default. Decisions get made to preserve what exists, not to build what could be. Vision aligns teams, justifies the risk of change, and replaces inertia with momentum. Instead of “we’ve always done it this way”, it’s “we’re doing it this way for a reason”.

Vision alone is not enough. It needs action. It requires intentional decision making towards a goal with institutional buy-in. However, it doesn’t belong solely to leadership. Vision requires the belief of the team. Belief that if we all row in the same direction, we can reach that distant isle. If the legacy team member believes in the vision, therein lies a strong ally to become a champion of change.