Ask HN: Am I wrong to spend 'extra time' on things?

I'm a Developer of web apps working at a startup, and I'm passionate about UI design. I regularly get praised for apps I make because of the extra touches and good design, but primarily I'm developing some sophisticated apps with 90% of the time spent on the backend code. At this point most of the apps are R&D prototypes. It kind of makes me feel bad as other developers who are way smarter than me don't get any praise for just delivering the functionality which was asked for in the spec; either they don't have the UI skills to show off, they don't think a good UI is important, or they are more experienced and less rebelious!

If I'm creating an app which may take 10 hours, I'll make sure I spend a good hour or two on top of that making it look great and usable! These two things are never asked for, quite the opposite in fact. Sometimes I do this bit in my own time.

The problem is, on every project now I'm getting told by my peers "don't spend any extra time on this", "nothing fancy", "knock this up as quick as possible, we'll do design if the client likes it". I often ignore this advice, as sometimes these apps are demos sales guys are showing off to prospective clients, if I didn't provide a good design then I wouldn't be motivated to do my job, I just don't agree with the decision. To back this up even more, when I disobey this advice I don't get told off, often the feedback is very positive simply because of the 'extra time' I've put in! If the sales team come back with good feedback, it cancels out the imminent telling off I was about to get from my technical manager. It seems no matter how important I prove the UI design is, I'm getting increasingly pressured to forget it, and if it were upto my peers every app I produce would have no stylesheet, Times new Roman fonts on a white background with raw HTML tables!

This is starting to affect my motivation and I'm constantly hiding photoshop and anything with color on it if someone important is looking! I need a job where spending a little time to make things usable and attractive is ok. Am I being too rebelious here? Should I raise this formally with my manager?

Thanks in advance for the help guys.

In today's world, deadlines are everything. And it has been my experience that deadlines are getting tighter and tighter. So I understand where your manager comes from, he just want you to finish the project in the shortest amount of time.

However, having a sense of design and wanting to make eveything you do a cut above the rest are admireable qualities in my point of view. I'm sure there are loads of companies who will actually appreciate this. If you're having fun at your job, discuss it with your manager. If he just wants a code monkey, tell him there are loads of them, and that this position at this job are not for you.

I know design skills are becoming more common, but for now I guess I'm fortunate to have other options as you suggest. I guess I just need to know if that side of my work IS appreciated. Thanks for the advice.

I won't!

It's odd how we all agree that Apple's relentless focus on quality - from the very first day when Woz spent all those hours creating beautiful internal hardware that no one every saw to today's Apple that frets about creating hi-fi prototypes with actual data and not lorem ipsum - is key to their success and yet we seldom invest resources in achieving that level of quality.

On the other hand, things work different in startup land. You need to make sure that they work you put in has actual value and doesn't steal time from other, high priority work. This sometimes means creating stuff that might not reflect our level of expertise or be align with our ideals.

Ultimately, you need to find a balance between these two extremes. A balance that you personally can live with because each end of the spectrum is equally valid. If you find that your core beliefs clash with the rest of your startup, maybe you should start looking for a startup that prioritizes design and user experience much more.