The natural extension to Spolsky’s quote is: Unless someone else is paying for the jeans. I think the smaller the organization, the more likely that a software

The natural extension to Spolsky’s quote is: Unless someone else is paying for the jeans. I think the smaller the organization, the more likely that a software projects has real stakeholders. In bigger, more mature organizations, the experienced players have arranged their affairs so that their career progress doesn’t depend on delivery of software: Late, early, or ever. For instance I work on the “hardware” side of technology development, and I tailor my annual performance review goals so that a deliverable is satisfied when I can demo it with code that I’ve written myself.