The senior leadership of a company sets the tone. Poor quality code is a clear indicator of short term-ism. It is senior leadership's responsibility to protect

The senior leadership of a company sets the tone. Poor quality code is a clear indicator of short term-ism. It is senior leadership's responsibility to protect the long term health of the company, and only senior leadership can do that. If you are a line worker and you are making long term decisions, then you are what's called a 'hero.' You are sacrificing yourself for the greater good. Being a hero is not rewarded, it is punished. Hero's end up burnt out and cynical. You can either choose to lead upwards by trying to get your senior leadership to understand the long term cost of their short term incentives or you can do what everyone else is doing and be a mercenary. Your stock compensation is the only thing that should make you question your mercenary status. Unless you're employee 5 or working for a rocket ship, your stock is probably not functionally different than salary, that is, you probably won't double the value of your stock to make being a hero worth it. > "the customer doesn't pay for good code". If this is how they see it, those are the rules they set. Do it for 1-2 years and leave when the company starts collapsing under the weight of their poor quality code.