Brownfield vs Greenfield development? [closed]

Question

This is not a question with a precise answer (strictly speaking the answer would be best captured by a poll, but that functionality is not available), but I am genuinely interested in the answer, so I will ask it anyway.

Over the course of your career, how much time have you spent on greenfield development compared with brownfield?

Over the last 10 years I would estimate that I have spent 20% on greenfield and 80% on brownfield. Is this typical?

Answer 1

I think it's typical for professionals who deal with customers to spend more time in brownfield development. The reason is that customers typically aren't willing to throw out their existing software to adopt the "latest and greatest" (green) software.

Developers in research or academics, however, may be more likely to do greenfield development. Start-ups as well.