TL;DR
We are working on an app for a crypto social currency for the city of Barcelona, it was started by another company and they stopped working on it and handle it down to us.
When we first started we made tech-dept calculation and it gave us something like 3.6yrs for a 1 yr project... crazy... We started working on it little by little, refactoring here and there... it's been 2+ years since we started. But as usual, we were faced with new features and bug fixes that took us of course from refactoring, so tech-dept has not been reduced that much...
Many times they've also asked for a feature they need ASAP, we have done it at the cost of letting another project aside and/or working more hours... in the end, they didn't even want to dispatch it... this has happened 3-4 times already...
There is also the point that I'm the only developer working on the app, and communication is not very good lately so I feel alone quite a bit, and feel like I'm a machine that receives requests and dispatches code... which I'm not, I'm human and have feelings.
I have also been fixing loads of bugs introduced because of bad design by their part, and make me feel like it was my fault... I can handle this somewhat, because I know it was not my fault. But when it's a recurring thing, it starts to add up and can be really frustrating and depressing.
Lately, I've been struggling to find motivation and willingness to work on the project, mainly because the bad quality of the codebase and the little interest on the team's side to improve the app or at least acknowledge that It's rubbish, and I'm doing more work than needed. It's also giving me a lot of anxiety thinking about working on the project, as I know how much work and headaches I will have whilst working on it... and knowing that I'm alone does not help at all...
I would love to know how you guys and girls handle this kind of stuff, what would you do in my situation?
- Should I embrace it and just f**k it?
- Should I try and be more serious about the importance of improving the codebase (not just only to improve the app but for my own sanity) and talk with the team even more?
Any advice or help is really appreciated. And if you read up to here, I must thank you for taking the time to try and help :)
Latest comments (3)
Hola Erick, segui tu consejo y les comente mis inquietudes y aporte una solución, parece que esta vez han estado más dispuestos a escuchar y a aplicar cambios.
Así que muchas gracias por el consejo! Te invito a una cerveza virtual 🍺
Muy buen consejo, ya les comente un par de veces la situación y cambiamos algunas formas de trabajar (las cambie yo) pero realmente ellos no han cambiado apenas nada por su parte, creo que tal vez pueda explicarlo como dices, planteando la solución que yo creería apropiada y en caso de que no se apliquen cambios o soluciones comentar la posibilidad de cambio de equipo o a una muy mala dejar la empresa.
Gracias! Me has ayudado bastante! Y realmente agradezco que hayas usado un poco de tu tiempo para aconsejarme :)
Gracias por la respuesta Erick, es algo que he estado planteandome durante un tiempo, pero es difícil dar el salto y más ahora mismo con la situación en la que estamos.
Pero es algo que tendré que hacer tarde o temprano, lo unico es que llevo 5 años en esta empresa y en general está muy bien, aparte de esta aplicación y algunas cosas más, y siempre se han portado muy bien por lo que me cuesta un poco decirles adios.
Gracias por las correcciones también, lo he escrito con un poco de prisa y se me han colado unas cosillas :) Estaba dudando con "trespassed", gracias por aclararlo.