[asoneth]

> if you can't convince your "boss" to give you enough time to deliver something that meets your bar, quit.

I did this and while it solved my moral dilemma it made things worse for our users.

Many years ago I started my career working for a startup that got bought by a big government contractor. The most incredible people I've ever worked with tried harder than you can imagine to deliver reliable, usable software for the American taxpayer that met the very high bar we set for ourselves.

Because the incentives weren't aligned, most of the good people eventually quit to work at places where they could deliver something that met their bar and were replaced with junior devs and senior clock-watchers.

Every good person who left made that problem slightly harder for those of us who stayed because there was one less person fighting for quality and usability, but the contracts were as big as ever and the new people were less likely to rock the boat so management didn't care that product quality was dropping off a cliff.

In the end it was primarily our users who suffered.

[pas]

> [--------] didn't care that product quality was dropping off a cliff.

fill in the blanks! it's not management, it's the customer. if the customer doesn't care management doesn't care.

it's a tragedy, but it's what it is. citizens as users need to demand better. it's just politics. in the end revealed preferences show that users don't care that much. they learn the shitty system to do their thing, and then they go home to their family/dog/MMORPG/life.

and users don't care on the meta level either, to have better procurement processes.

[asoneth]

You're right, management was simply the messenger relaying customer priorities.

I will point out that enough consumers are willing to pay for a quality products that many niche companies exist to serve them. Many citizens choose to move to countries/states with better services even if they have to pay higher taxes. There are employees who reject higher-paying jobs that require interacting with poor-quality software or processes. (I work for a niche company that makes and uses high-quality products in a high-tax / high service state so I know many people like this!)

> citizens as users need to demand better.

I get what you mean, but as you point out many people's revealed preferences show that they don't actually want quality in which case they already do "demand better" -- it's just that for them "better" means cheap, fast, and convenient.

[repelsteeltje]

> [..] were replaced with junior devs and senior clock-watchers.

That is a sad story indeed.

I guess the silver lining is that you didn't waste your talent contributing to a mismanaged project. Hopefully, given a free market, the service will eventually be replaced by something better.

[asoneth]

I don't regret the decision but I do feel a little guilt for what I left behind.

I have friends who moved out of struggling towns and states who describe similar feelings about being part of the "brain drain" death spiral that is hollowing out the place they grew up.

> Hopefully, given a free market, the service will eventually be replaced by something better.

I too believed that something like that would happen eventually but their business is still booming. In the decades since I've learned that the "fitness function" of companies that serve governments or large enterprises do not reward product quality (at least not commensurate with the cost of quality) so companies or teams that insist on wasting effort making quality products do not survive. It's not malice or incompetence, it's just a survival response to misaligned incentives.

[repelsteeltje]

I hear you.

Felt the same when saying goodbye to my colleagues, stranded in a golden cage, when the startup we worked for was acquired by Oracle after 8 years. Our beloved product was eventually killed (years after I resigned), but Oracle — despite its obvious mediocre halo — is still alive and kicking.