[Distozion]

One of the startups I worked at had a simple rule - if you wanted to complain about something being bad, you had to come with suggestions how to make it better. And they had to be real, tangible option that could be implemented, not "how about we use technology X".

If you had nothing - you could flag something as an issue - but you were expected to either say how you suggest so solve it or shut up. You did your part of flagging the issues and that was it. It was a startup working with banks & everyone knew there are issues all around, but a lot of them we couldn't solve ourselves, because of the banks being unwilling, regulation being not clear enough if we're allowed to change anything or sometimes both.

If you came with a plan how it can be fixed while minimising the risks associated - no matter if you were junior or senior, at least you'd be listed to. If the ideas are good, the other devs would pitch in to make a realistic implementation plan. Beauty of laws & banking - if something is unclear, no one wants to touch it, so as long as you pass that hurdle - you'd get the go-ahead :D

Yes, quite a few issues ended up being ignored, but at the same time - if no one knows how to fix it, what's the point of draining everyone by continuously complaining how bad it is.

We had relatively few of meta discussion that were not product related - ever since them, I do believe that devs start focusing on code quality and "the right way to do it" only when they lack the power to make any of the product decisions.