--- title: Why Bad Code Gets Rewarded | daily.dev description: Being the hero who fixes broken code at 3 AM doesn't make you essential—it makes you a bottleneck. Companies promote engineers who prevent fires, not those who... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/why-bad-code-gets-rewarded-8fpbubz0q twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Why Bad Code Gets Rewarded | daily.dev og:description: Being the hero who fixes broken code at 3 AM doesn't make you essential—it makes you a bottleneck. Companies promote engineers who prevent fires, not those who... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/why-bad-code-gets-rewarded-8fpbubz0q og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/8fPBubZ0q.png og:image:alt: Why Bad Code Gets Rewarded og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Why Bad Code Gets Rewarded **[The Serious CTO](https://daily.dev/sources/seriouscto)** · 3 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Being the hero who fixes broken code at 3 AM doesn't make you essential—it makes you a bottleneck. Companies promote engineers who prevent fires, not those who put them out. Technical debt is like a loan: shortcuts to meet deadlines accumulate interest through bugs and slowness. Write simple, maintainable code that junior developers can understand, not clever code that shows off. Think like a business person: every line of code is a maintenance cost. Build isolation around quick hacks to prevent them from spreading. Real seniority means understanding how technical decisions impact business value, not just writing clean code. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Technical Debt Is a Myth Created By Bad Managers](https://daily.dev/posts/technical-debt-is-a-myth-created-by-bad-managers-nko3hfjlg) · DEV · 202 upvotes · 20 comments - [Most of you calling yourselves “senior developers” are actually just professional litterers](https://daily.dev/posts/most-of-you-calling-yourselves-senior-developers-are-actually-just-professional-litterers-4qqappjr4) · Medium · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [There's No Limit to How Bad Code Can Get](https://daily.dev/posts/there-s-no-limit-to-how-bad-code-can-get-nsoryvawm) · Lobsters · 0 upvotes · 1 comments - [Most Technical Problems Are Really People Problems](https://daily.dev/posts/most-technical-problems-are-really-people-problems-jdjo2iub6) · Hacker News · 3 upvotes · 1 comments --- Tags: [#career](https://daily.dev/tags/career), [#technical-debt](https://daily.dev/tags/technical-debt) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/why-bad-code-gets-rewarded-8fpbubz0q) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Why Bad Code Gets Rewarded","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/why-bad-code-gets-rewarded-8fpbubz0q","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/why-bad-code-gets-rewarded-8fpbubz0q"},"datePublished":"2026-02-12T14:44:19.622Z","dateModified":"2026-02-12T14:44:39.874Z","description":"Being the hero who fixes broken code at 3 AM doesn't make you essential—it makes you a bottleneck. 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