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The problem is that anyone with a semblance of professional pride will find it mentally quite difficult to knowingly ship bad software. Like, sure, even if we
by bedobi 3y ago
The problem is that anyone with a semblance of professional pride will find it mentally quite difficult to knowingly ship bad software.
Like, sure, even if we make best efforts to catch both obvious and less obvious bugs, all software we ship will still be full of bugs. But knowingly shipping software full of obvious bugs... it feels unprofessional. And makes you really feel the weight of all the inevitable bug reports that come in.
The alternative often becomes to warn about it, have the organization respond (whether explicitly or otherwise) "we don't care", and then, to preserve your sanity, say to yourself "well, then all bets are off, and I'm not responsible" which also isn't healthy, because it leaves you jaded, disengaged and robs you of your sense of professionalism.
I don't have a solution here lol other than find an org that cares about quality to an acceptable degree.
- jonnycomputer 3y agoyeah. and not just "not professional". It's basically giving the finger to a whole bunch of (generally) lower-paid support staff answering phone calls from irate customers.
- JohnFen 3y agoNot to mention it's giving the finger to the customers.
- nickelbob 3y agoPerhaps one solution is to divorce your own self worth from the quality of the software you happen to write and to realize that you are an employee first and a software engineer second - make decisions that increase the amount of money the company makes and look for self worth in that itself or in hobbies/family/friends/something else.
- braza 3y agoThat’s was the main reason that I do my pet projects: to detach myself from some corporate persona that is a completely different from my professional self. I still have a lot of professional pride, but it comes more from my personal projects and sharpening my craft than to some corporate version that could be dragged down by structural issues.
- int_19h 3y agoIf one is going to go there, why not make decisions that increase the amount of money you make? Why help companies succeed shipping crappy software?
- nickelbob 3y agoIf your self worth is related to how much money you make (not saying that's bad) then go for it!
- tru1ock 3y agoYou are not professional if you are not aligning with the values that are being optimized for the context. There should be an explicit decision tree setup for your work context that informs you what those values are. If not have some conversations and align.