30 Signs That Your Startup Sucks
We’ve all been there. Your awesome new gig looks so good on paper but when you do actually quit your job/relocate/basically start your life over turns out to be the worst ducking nightmare.
I slipped once and took that job. From legacy code to unwise business decisions, everything about it was such a disappointment. I couldn’t help but wonder what I had gotten myself into. Looking back, the only good thing about it was the valuable lessons I received in how NOT to build a startup. I would like to share it with you, my fellow devs. Be safe out there! Yours always, Marina.
These 30 things happen when your startup stinks:
1. Setting up your development environment takes 8+ hours
The last person who tried, quit after two weeks. (true story)
2. JIRA board looks like a nuclear disaster
Their active sprint has been rolling since 2014.
3. They rewrote the legacy ASP.NET app from scratch in JRuby, and they’re rewriting it again in React
It’s been three years.
4. Nobody in the company has seen, or used the product that they are building
ASP.NET’s still going strong.
5. Setting up Gulp is ongoing since last December
So much for what Webpack could have accomplished right out of the box.
6. They put each React component into its own Rails view
7. Their node_modules where last updated during the Crusades
`npm update` if you dare.
8. The estimate for every feature is 2 weeks
It’s been three years.
9. They signed for an insane amount of Amazon services
They pulled them in the project, and they might even use them… in two weeks.
10. Deployments
There is a bash script that somebody wrote two years ago who no longer works here. Type ~./deploy_to_prod.sh in the console and hit Enter. Oh, wait, somebody just air dropped you their .env file. Make use of it. Good luck.
11. CTO opted for JRuby because it integrates with Java
Java::JavaLang::RuntimeException (com.headius.invokebinder.InvalidTransformException: java.lang.IllegalAccessException: no such method….every fucking time.
Also, Java integration? Never happened.
12. Their JRuby version is 1.7.11 and they are too scared to upgrade it
You are now stuck with the least stable, outdated build of JRuby that is no longer maintained or supported.
13. They drop at least $5k a month on Amazon RDS and EC2 instances
And let them sit idle.
14. However it’s taking forever to get a promotion
Because they are anxious to “cut expenses”.
15. The EC2 instances are the largest size possible, though
[insert small penis joke here]
16. They hire a dev fresh off the bootcamp
And they offer him a starting salary that is only marginally lower than yours (8+ years experience, CS degree, female).
17. When you point out any problem with the code your boss’s reaction is always ‘We need to dry it up a little.’
Also, famous last words before he gets ugly fired by the board two months later.
18. And what about that Gulp task that circularly includes Bootstrap dependency in a stylesheet about a bajillion times?
This too shall pass.
19. By the way, this is the reason why running Gulp fails intermittently
They already accepted it as one of the inherent wonders of life.
20. They hired a third-party agency to develop a mobile version of the app
But they haven’t started on mobile endpoints yet.
21. I lied. They did start on mobile API, but are still trying to get Twitter authentication to work
You find versions of AuthenticationController with the chunks of the commented out code and quietly wonder how much pain your predecessor must’ve gone through. It takes you an hour, a Ruby gem and 10 lines of code to make it work — afterwards they hail you as their new Messiah.
22. The best part…
When they expect the mobile folks to define API JSON response shapes for them, and get pissed when they get pissed. ❤
23. They are all about Agile methodology
Yet, there are no epics, sprint planning, burndowns, properly defined stories, or even an assigned product owner. And their SCRUMS are, possibly, the saddest thing you’ve seen in your entire life.
24. Nobody knows anything
Including the fact that their Frankenapp is not going to work due to the gaping holes in functionality.
25. About once a week your boss requests you to build a new Amazon SQS queue
Honestly I don’t even know what’s up with this.
26. As a person who’s been there for a week, you are asked to implement a very critical feature that will be demoed to investors
When you finish right in time for the demo because you are awesome, it is the only thing that works in the entire app.
27. They never miss their morning Starbucks run
Never. Period.
28. When you are getting ready to leave at 6pm, your boss suggests you work longer hours, starting tomorrow
You get pissed and miss a Starbucks run the next day. The entire team is freaking out, “Nobody breaks the morning Starbucks routine!”
29. They’d like you to pull an all-nighter before an important demo to demonstrate team spirit
The next day all the night fixes must be reverted because they caused more critical issues and everybody takes a day off. Every.freaking.time.
30. Afterwards, they claim that it had only happened once or twice before you arrived, overall, it’s a slow-paced work environment
In the next 2 weeks, you pull three more all-nighters.
31. Add your own experiences in the responses below!
I’ll be waiting patiently…
Hi, I’m Marina, the writer of thangs, tech and non-tech. I’m pleased to report that I narrowly escaped the horrors of my gig thanks to my exceptional luck (as always). The entire team was actually rebuilt from scratch only about two months in after I was hired. We’re kicking ass now. Rewrote (and released!) the entire app in Cobol…just kiddin’…in Node.js. It’s basically like Happily Tech Ever After(…aww) which gives me the opportunity to look back at this whole experience with an [evil] smile.
