Ask HN: How many greenfield projects have you done?

Many, in the sense of "here is the problem, design and build a solution from scratch" IT engineering. I got to implement all sorts of things it would have been wiser to buy in. Joys of small nonprofits.

Several times literally: hacking home sites out of the woods for ourselves and others seems to be a habit with my family. I can think of a dozen such efforts Ive been involved in, including my house which was a half mile from power and covered in cedars when I started. (its still covered in cedars, there's just a house hidden under them now)

Depends what you consider greenfield. 2 major projects were rewrites from scratch, but already had a user base/design for the old system.

13 other "full" projects on my portfolio, as in functional, pretty UI, designed from requirements with no designer, but not necessarily commercialized.

A bunch more other prototypes, probably more than a dozen. Some were hackathon tier, functional but purposeless. Some took months and were paid but didn't form into a proper product. Some were freelance projects from some hack who decided to step out. If you include dumb ideas that I get excited for 2 weeks, there are plenty of those too.

One active personal project that has 2000 monthly users. It took about 3 years to write the first line of code because I was trying to figure out the correct approach and didn't like the sketches. The first prototype was terrible. V7 was active since 2020 and has its fans.

Three jobs back I worked for a startup. Everything I did was greenfield. I developed lots of very cool tech. Its the most fun I've had since.

Rough Estimates:

  * 70 Websites w/ various levels of programatic functionality to them
  * 50 small software projects (1-3 devs, limited testing, etc)
  * 10 enterprise-type greenfield projects (large team, 1-3 year scope, etc)

Completely greenfield at work? None - I've always had to integrate some parts to some legacy application.