Then a year or two later you quit/get fired/move to a new team and that code is underpinning a business critical task. Everyone responsible for the code is scared to do any major refactoring because of how important it is but it seems to be working ok. Hopefully they'll have time for a big refactor next quarter when they can afford to take some time and manage the associated risk.
The newly responsible team decides to rewrite it because "it'll be easier than adding the new feature", hopping on for another ride on the rollercoaster of sadness.
I’ve given up at this point because in the tech industry, there are zero wins. Even if you knock something out in 2 weeks, you’re “too slow” and need to “iterate faster”.
Okay fine.
iterates faster
“Why is this missing X, Y, and Z? Why is this button blue?”
Did you want good or fast? You get one.
and more often than not, you don't get matching raise
One way or another, the interest on the technical debt always comes due. When you hear phrases like "we can't do that without a major refactor" with increasing frequency, you'll know that day is not far off.
...And I just realized that it might be time for me to start looking for a new job cause the credit line on my current project is about maxed out.
I feel attacked.
In one of my old jobs we had a couple thousand line shell script called something like prod_corrections_adhoc.ksh. It was used to jam through emergency fixes between code releases.
It still has 'adhoc corrections' from 2006
marketing can either let me do it right or keep bugging me with more changes and forcing it to be done in two weeks without hiring anyone else for my team
"After I leave, this is going to be someone else's problem."
