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Ask HN: How to deal with managers who encourage shippability over quality?
I understand shipping the product should be the primary focus, but how do you deal with managers who always say things like "Let's just ship first and come back later to refactor/clean up"? Of course, we never come back to fix things because there are always features to work on. It's almost like I'm being actively discouraged to spend time thinking and designing in the interest of expediency. I feel this is hampering my ability to learn to write good code from scratch as we are always looking to "making things work first".
Aside from the obvious (changing jobs), what can I do as an engineer to discourage this type of thinking?
- gronne 8y agoYou are not alone - in fact: its the norm. Double all your estimates. Don’t push/show POC code. Do some design work before you code (write it down /draw a diagram or two). Don’t ask/involve your manager unless you want him/her to make the decision (which will always be: if it works - ship it)
- sp00der 8y agoI've seen this go two ways. Become convincing and try to use experience to persuade. Or, document for the experience, do your best and use any failures as an example later to tactfully persuade in the future.