--- title: "You Ship Bad Software Because You're Nice" url: https://daily.dev/posts/you-ship-bad-software-because-you-re-nice-ptlty3rc8 source_url: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ws5DqO8tydc type: video:youtube source: "The Serious CTO" published: 2026-06-18T18:55:55.250Z updated: 2026-06-18T18:56:15.686Z tags: ["architecture", "code-review", "company-culture"] reading_time: 15 upvotes: 15 comments: 1 language: 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. # You Ship Bad Software Because You're Nice **[The Serious CTO](https://daily.dev/sources/seriouscto)** · 15 min read · 15 upvotes · 1 comments ## Summary Being 'nice' in engineering teams — softening code reviews, staying silent in architecture meetings, avoiding hard truths — is a form of ruinous empathy that directly causes production failures and technical debt. Drawing on Kim Scott's Radical Candor framework, Google's Project Aristotle, and real-world cases like Knight Capital's $440M loss, the argument is that high-performing teams have more conflict, not less, but it's idea-focused rather than personal. Practical techniques include writing positions before discussions, running premortems, and using written review before verbal discussion. The career angle: candid technical communication is the primary skill separating senior engineers from staff-level roles, and developers who avoid it rarely advance beyond senior. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Community discussion Top comments from developers on daily.dev. **@daniel8000** · 1 upvotes > Its system problem that it ignores or even punishes critical thinking, not employees. I will stay nice as its what makes me still employed and paid ;) ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Your engineering team looks healthy. It probably isn't](https://daily.dev/posts/your-engineering-team-looks-healthy-it-probably-isn-t-to0izfpfa) · Lobsters · 2 upvotes · 0 comments - [Technical debt is not malice](https://daily.dev/posts/technical-debt-is-not-malice-6bxtitbnk) · PHPUnit Expert · 7 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#architecture](https://daily.dev/tags/architecture), [#code-review](https://daily.dev/tags/code-review), [#company-culture](https://daily.dev/tags/company-culture) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/you-ship-bad-software-because-you-re-nice-ptlty3rc8)