The Ultimate Sin of Software Development?
One of my software developer friends recently told me that he’s leaving his company. His reasoning behind leaving was really disturbing and I wondered if it could be considered the “ultimate sin” of software development.
He started as one of the first five developers at a local startup company and was a major part in designing the system. He had input in everything from what language/frameworks to use to how the system would be layered. He spent about two years with the company and is now leaving because, as he puts it, he no longer wants to work on the product due to the fact that the system itself is so onerous to manage. His team has essentially built their product into a Big Ball of Mud. Rather than continuing to battle to make the project work, he’d much rather start over new at somewhere else. And there are many companies that would give him a raise in pay to do this.
This reasoning struck me as just about the worse thing that a developer can do career-wise. The company that he started with invested a large amount of time, money, and trust in him and the rest of his team. They depended on him to create a successful product that was both profitable and maintainable. His team failed that duty and now he’s decided to bolt because it would be too much work to re-architect the product. This leaves the company in a tremendously disadvantaged position. They must now replace him with a new developer who will most likely require a large amount of time to come up to speed on the product. And if the developer is any good, it is likely that he/she will leave the company as well once they discover the true condition of the product.
So is this truly the “ultimate sin” of software development?
