The issue is, managers want these things, like a nice code base, but are unwilling to pay for it. Or more correctly you have to pay most of the cost of that Hodge podge of hacks. So while they can off load that cost to you, why would they make an effort to improve the situation?

So what do we do? Working this way drives me crazy, depressed, and unhappy; I don’t want to do it anymore.

I don’t want to be part of the problem either by becoming one such manager so that others will have to pay the cost of my benefit.

What’s left? Opt out, live on shoestring budget for the rest of your life, and hope it works out?

There are thousands of software engineering jobs out there, how many have you tried? A handful? Increase your sample size.

Who listens, though? Look at seminal work like “the mythical man month”… while most people “in the trenches” agree that nine women can’t make a baby in one month, project managers and executives still very much think it’s possible 40 years later.

You can explain it to them, but you can't understand it for them..

And you're the first to be let go. The squeaky wheel that irks the bosses.

Maybe. It is their loss.