Something was started and never finished.
Almost every developer who inherits someone else's code will recommend rewriting it. Some of the time that is honest engineering judgement. Much of the time it is because reading unfamiliar code is genuinely harder and less enjoyable than writing new code, and a rewrite is a larger, better-paid contract.
You cannot tell which one you are hearing without an independent look. An audit costs a fraction of a rewrite and takes days rather than months, and it gives you something concrete to hold the next quote against.
In practice a good share of projects declared unsalvageable turn out to need targeted repair — a few broken flows, some missing indexes, a security policy that was never written — rather than demolition.
Before you engage anyone new, make sure the project is actually yours. This is the step people skip, and it is the one that turns a recoverable project into a lost one.
Tools like Lovable, v0, Bolt, Replit and Cursor produce something that looks finished very quickly. The gap is not in the interface — it is underneath: security rules that were never written properly, payment flows that work once but not reliably, and database structures that behave until real numbers of people use them.
The good news is that the output is ordinary code in ordinary frameworks. An experienced engineer can take it over without discarding your interface, so the prototype's speed advantage is preserved rather than wasted.
Expect the first stage to be an audit priced by the day, not by the project. Nobody can quote a completion price for code they have not read, and a fixed price offered before an audit is either padded heavily or about to become a series of change requests.
After the audit you should get a written scope with real milestones. If the person cannot explain in plain language what is wrong and what they intend to do about it, that is the signal to stop, whatever the price.
Routinely, yes. Taking over an existing codebase is normal senior work. It starts with reading and running the project, not with rewriting it.
Check the repository and hosting accounts first — ownership is often already yours and simply undocumented. If the code genuinely only exists on their machine, what is deployed can usually still be recovered.
Khmelnytskyi, Ukraine
Full-Stack Developer — Websites, Apps, Servers, Databases, AI, SEO & QA
Full-stack developer working across the entire stack — websites, apps, servers, databases, AI integrations, SEO, and QA. Languages & Core: writes code in JavaScript, TypeScript, Python, PHP, Go, and Rust. Architects scalable systems for large-scale projects. Frontend & Interfaces: builds websites and web applications with React and Next.js. Crafts responsive interfaces with Tailwind CSS, Radix UI and Shadcn, adds smooth animations with Framer Motion, and interactive charts with Recharts. SEO Audit & On-Page Optimization: semantic keyword research, resolving technical indexing issues, and optimizing page load speeds. Structures page architecture, meta tags, and multi-language support (i18n). Copywriting & Content Strategy: writes technical articles, drafts precise content briefs for writers, and develops content plans. QA & Testing: full-cycle testing for websites, web services, and Android apps — manual QA for UI/UX and business logic, plus automated testing with Jest, Vitest, Playwright and E2E. Backend, Cloud & Databases: complex API integrations of any scale. Builds servers with Node.js (Express, Fastify). Works with PostgreSQL, MySQL and MongoDB, ORMs (Prisma, Drizzle), and cloud infrastructure (Supabase, Firebase, Cloudflare). Browser Extensions & Automation: develops Manifest V3 browser extensions for Chrome, Edge, Firefox and other browsers. Builds web scrapers for complex data extraction using Puppeteer and Playwright. AI & Intelligent Agents: builds custom AI agents and integrates LLMs from OpenAI, Google Gemini, and Anthropic Claude via API, including Claude Code setups. Servers & DevOps: Linux (Ubuntu) and VPS administration — setup, updates, real-time monitoring, secure process isolation, Nginx, PM2, and CI/CD deployment via GitHub Actions. Telegram Bots: develops advanced Telegram bots (Telegraf, Grammy) integrated with AI, payment gateways, Google Sheets, and crypto exchanges. Desktop Applications: builds cross-platform software for Windows and macOS using Electron and Rust. Additional expertise: site development and customization with WordPress and Astro.
AI & Distributed Systems Architect | Enterprise AI, RAG, Cloud, Blockchain | Advisory & Fractional Leadership
AI and distributed systems architect providing advisory and fractional leadership on enterprise AI, RAG pipelines, cloud architecture and blockchain-backed data systems.
Khmelnytskyi, Ukraine
Senior Backend Engineer | AI Engineering | PHP, Python, LLM Applications
Senior backend engineer working across PHP and Python, with a growing focus on AI engineering: building LLM-powered application features on top of existing backend systems and APIs.