I'll say this: if you aren't writing code in a way that someone else can pick up the project when you leave, then you are being an irresponsible coder.

This only makes sense if the compensation isn't tied to your replacement value. If it's tied to replacement value... well, too bad - the company shouldn't create an incentive to ramp up technical debt.

The problem is, that's 98% of coders that you've described.

Irresponsible coding follows naturally from irresponsible management.

Take responsibility for your own code. Be a man, or be a woman. Stop blaming other people. Your life becomes better when you take control.

I take responsibility for my own code.

Code that belongs to the company is ultimately the responsibility of the stockholders and their board. As an at will employee with no equity, I will give them exactly what they ask for in their code.

At each job, I will go above and beyond the call of duty once, to gauge the reaction. At some jobs, I get a cash bonus. At others, I just get a pat on the back. The last two jobs in a row, I was told to not do that again. So I didn't.

Don't be an apologist for bad management. I'm not going to do the right thing if I could get fired for it.

That's exactly the point. Developers aren't "mostly interchangeable". Some are much better bets than others.

My post had the condition of "competent developer". There are certainly some developers that aren't competent. In my experience those developers get weeded out of the industry relatively quickly. This cuts off the bottom of the bell curve leaving most most developers with something close to an average skill set or above.

I also won't discount the frictional costs of changing teams. If you take two identical developers and switch their jobs, each of their teams would see a temporary hit in performance as each one gets acclimated. But they will eventually get to the point were their team is exactly as efficient as it was with the other employee.

"There are certainly some developers that aren't competent. In my experience those developers get weeded out of the industry relatively quickly."

That gave me a chuckle.

If you define competence as being able to hold down a job..

(Though, of course, some social intelligence goes a long way. No need to actually know how to code.)

They don't get weeded out. They might even sit in one place for years at a time before management catches on and does something, if they even catch on at all. Or, they will bounce from job to job infecting various roles with their poor work until the immune system of each company slowly wakes up and does something about them. Sadly, this gives them more "experience" and industry credibility, making it even easier to trick future victims.

In my experience even something as simple as effort varies greatly between two equally skilled developers and results in very different outcomes.