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Great article. Note that much of the attitude comes from a belief that what is good for the company is ultimately good for the engineer. However, I'll suggest

by whyme 13y ago

Great article. Note that much of the attitude comes from a belief that what is good for the company is ultimately good for the engineer. However, I'll suggest that's not always the case. Take for example one of the OA's reflections: "Technical debt should be weighted against the actual ROI, because in many cases it is more cost effective to launch early. This way, though you may be accruing technical debt, you are also accruing revenue immediately, and you can reconcile the debt over time." Unfortunately, dependant upon your company, that last part may never happen and if I were to frequently experience that at a company, well, you better believe I would rather quit and if I couldn't quit I still would rather put my foot down and pump the tech debt argument for all it's worth, otherwise, in the longer term, working there would be a living hell. I know I'll get a lot of flak for this take, but all I can say is that while I've quit companies like that, I understand why some people couldn't do the same, and at that point it may require some tough love people management in effort to create a brighter future with a healthy work place.

vinceguidry 13y ago
> Unfortunately, dependant upon your company, that last part may never happen and if I were to frequently experience that at a company, well, you better believe I would rather quit and if I couldn't quit I still would rather put my foot down and pump the tech debt argument for all it's worth, otherwise, in the longer term, working there would be a living hell. Wish I could upvote you twice. My company has so much technical debt in the system that we have five people doing the job of three. Technical debt is almost never paid and the result is invariably a big-ass mess. You might then ask, "well if the company's profitable then what's the effing problem, then?" The answer is that there's a ginormous difference between where they could be and where they are now. I'm slowly coming to understand that broken is normal. Paying off technical debt can cause your company to mutate superpowers simply because nobody else does it.
- chris_mahan 13y ago
  Perhaps the concept of Technical Bankruptcy should be introduced.

by whyme 13y ago

vinceguidry 13y ago

> Unfortunately, dependant upon your company, that last part may never happen and if I were to frequently experience that at a company, well, you better believe I would rather quit and if I couldn't quit I still would rather put my foot down and pump the tech debt argument for all it's worth, otherwise, in the longer term, working there would be a living hell. Wish I could upvote you twice. My company has so much technical debt in the system that we have five people doing the job of three. Technical debt is almost never paid and the result is invariably a big-ass mess. You might then ask, "well if the company's profitable then what's the effing problem, then?" The answer is that there's a ginormous difference between where they could be and where they are now. I'm slowly coming to understand that broken is normal. Paying off technical debt can cause your company to mutate superpowers simply because nobody else does it.

chris_mahan 13y ago
Perhaps the concept of Technical Bankruptcy should be introduced.