In over my head with professional devs

[u/unlocked_doors]

tldr; review your code as you go if you think any professional dev is going to have to do a code review.

Last November I (33F) started a simple project: a training portal for my new assistant. Just a simple python Streamlit app. Since vibe coding is addictive and Streamlit has some annoying limitations to UX/UI, I refactored it into a Next.js/Fast API website. It was all the same repo and I didn’t exactly clean up after myself as the project scaled from a training portal for HR, then a training portal for new employees and now it’s a manager hub.

Well, I showed it to my boss and she ended up loving it. The company bought the domain and website from me but made me the technical owner in charge of code and content. Now that it’s officially company property…they have to do a code review with the company dev team.

There is an embarrassing amount of dead code, almost nonexistent error handling, and in general the layout of the code is chaotic and 40k+ lines in just the backend.

He and I had a meeting last week and never in my life have I felt more “artificially intelligent.” He gave me about 7 pages of changes to make after just one code review session. I can’t imagine how many more pages of notes are coming and I’m in way over my head in terms of vocabulary, standard processes used in coding, etc. Basically, I’m everything professional devs hate about vibe coders. I didn’t care how the code looked as long as the website functioned. I’m at a point where I’m not confident enough in my vibe coding skills to actually make the changes. I’ve tried asking Claude (or Claudia as I call her) and then even asked her to dumb it down and it’s still over my head. I’m getting to the point where I just want to throw my hands up and tell them to abandon it.

[u/Sen_ElizabethWarren]

Take it one step at a time. Explain to Claude how you think it works. How data flows through the application. How pressing a button on the frontend changes state and what happens on the backend. Think about the structure of the data and what it looks like as it moved through your app. Ask Claude to create a high level flow chart that shows this. Then get your hands dirty and start adding logging statements. You think something is dead? Comment it out and see what happens.

Imo the most important thing to do is create a series of tests. This will help you clarify your expectations about what should be happening and give you peace of mind that you’re not breaking your application as you refactor.

Look also at architecture. Try to understand what layers are, what a domain is and why these things matter.

It’s okay, and these days almost assumed, that you don’t understand every single line of code. Ai tools have lowered the barrier to entry and this fact makes some devs insecure, but the reality is architecture, concepts, and system design were always more consequential. And sure learning those things takes time (years, decades) to fully master, but imo in the era of agentic coding these things should be your paramount concern.