Maintaining code quality when nobody cares

If the quality of the software is slowing down feature releases, causing fires but is not being measured, you can make some headway with presenting ways to measure code quality so that your work shows up on their radar. This is difficult with such a subjective word as "quality" but tracking number of fires of time would be a good way to show that the way you develop is better than other people.

The other thing that companies miss are employees that help other employees in a mentoring sort of way. These people essentially cast a buff on everyone they work with. These buffs can be in the form of better tools, improved workflows, recommending reading material, new technologies etc. Unfortunately it seems this is up to that person's superior to recognize their value and fend for that person to upper management. I feel like it's easy for me to identify peers that cast buffs but not sure how easy it would be for a manager to identify such characters.

Here's what I've found:

- Most companies don't actually care about code quality. This is especially true for the ones that hire me. The managers that bring me in would much rather play-act than make the systemic changes required for their teams to operate with improving quality.

- There are systemic challenges to code quality in these environments. Namely hiring practices, performance evaluation, and priorities (budget/timeline). Obvious.

- Nobody can explain the benefit of code quality in terms persuasively enough to managers that they will accept the cost. I've never seen it done. It must come from somewhere else. This is why companies with more technical people in positions of leadership tend to have this problem less IME. Frankly I think this is why we use words like "technical debt" either that or it's a tautology. There's an irrational lack of discipline in this area akin to credit card debt.

- Furthermore, software itself does not matter to these companies.

That last one is the most important and it is not meant to be normative. I'm not saying software is not of actual importance. I'm saying it is not treated in the company with any importance. Software development is viewed as a necessary evil, not as an opportunity for competitive advantage.

The difference between my clients who view software as a necessary evil vs. a competitive advantage cannot be understated. It is immense. Often these companies with different perspectives are competitors in the same industry! You can guess which ones are growing happily and which ones are struggling to cope with changes to their business.

There are companies where the ratio of "business" people to IT is 1:3 and they balk when you tell them they're essentially a software company.

"No, we're a mortgage company."

Ok how's that working out?

What I've decided is to start doing a better assessment up front as to the actual priorities and perspective within these companies when choosing a client. There are companies where the light bulb is coming on and it can be a blast to work with them. In the current climate I would advise everyone to just flat out avoid companies that don't see themselves as tech companies. Work for companies that see themselves as tech companies or are seriously trying to change that perception internally. You can find companies like this in all industries. You might be surprised.

whoever works with you will have to bear the burden that you left behind because you think its a low ROI for YOU

I've known of or read the situation where someone opens some old code, thinks "Who wrote this hot garbage?", and then realizes it was them.

An engineer once told me he cried with joy when he saw the interface and used some subsystem I had written a year earlier (in C, for an embedded system). So, I encourage you to write such great, beautiful code that other engineers will cry with joy when they behold and maintain it.