when I am supposed to fix tech debt? if every week there is another functionality going out that needs to be done yesterday? Do you think that I have to do it in my free time? Why should I even bother existing
Try to lie about how long will it take. Just today I finished* 1-month almost total rewrite of firmware for one of devices at my work. It started as a 1-week small rewrite of part of communication module for a small bug and was scheduled as that. But I've got chill PM and coworkers who will appreciate that now we can actually fix some 8yr old bugs in legacy parts of that code.
* well, now some testing of edge cases and another round of fixes but at least remote code updating works so we can ship those devices...
Edit: "Lie" is call to action here, there were some misunderstanding in comments. Previous start of my comment was "Lie. ..."
Have you considered that perhaps your personal perspective is not exactly representative of large swathes of the industry and that many (if not most) workers do not have the agency and/or leeway to place place themselves in a comparable situation?
I wouldn't be so cut-and-dry with your assertion that the parent post is "lying".
> Have you considered that perhaps your personal perspective is not exactly representative of large swathes of the industry
Yes. HN is place for ALL kinds of people, sometimes they are not even programmers. Many tips are not applicable to everyone here.