Whether you rewrite or refactor the code is not so much the point of my comment - it's more that you should first determine what you actually need, in consultation with the project stakeholders, get rid of whatever you don't need, and then you can decide whether you need to rewrite or refactor. Cutting away the bloat will give you a better perspective on that decision.
Personally, I would lean towards refactoring - a rewrite is the "declare bankrupcy" stage of technical debt and should only be considered in extremis. For example, the original codebase was written in ColdFusion and in 2025 you can't find any ColdFusion developers (or anyone in their right mind who wants to become a ColdFusion developer). But in any case, rewriting a trimmed down codebase is easier than trying to replicate features you don't need any more.
Often the problem with companies running the Feature Factory production treadmill too long is you have code supporting unused features and business logic, but nobody knows any more which features can be dropped or simplified (particularly after lots of employee churn and lack of documentation). So the problem is not so much technical debt, but product debt.
You can refactor, but you're also wasting time optimizing code you don't need. A better approach is to sit down with rest of the company and start cutting away the bloat, and then refactor what's left.
The problem is that once you take the VC coin, you are pushed towards hyper-scale. If you don't take the VC coin it's a much harder and longer path to self-sustainability, unless you have some way to fund yourself e.g. consulting. 37 Signals is the model here, but they are super-exceptional (they created Rails, after all).
Then having got there, a VC-funded competitor will just roll over you as they'll have better connections and funding.
They are great for throwaway hobbyist side projects where you don't want to worry about AWS billing horror stories or more expensive offerings like Digital Ocean or Linode.
I would not recommend them for a serious, money-on-the-table business.
Normally I hate timesheets, but there is some satisfaction in putting "Company meeting: 4 hours" into a timesheet and knowing the managers will have a mild heart attack when those 4 hours are multiplied for every person across the company when they look at the end of the month report.
You would terminate someone for...having an opinion? They didn't mention the company they worked for (if indeed it is their company and not some made-up example).
Little secret: outside of self-proclaimed "leaders" in the Linkedin bubble, most normal people think like the writer, if not put so eloquently. They have jobs to do, and know how to do them, and do not appreciate being dragged into a 4 hour meeting to listen to bullshit. Of course they'll do it if they are told to. But if you are a "leader" you would be conscious of their time and not waste it on self-congratulatory claptrap.
Honestly, what is the market for these SAAS starters these days? Is anyone making serious money, or even a modest side income, with some web app? It seems the low-hanging fruit is well and truly picked at this point and building something that will earn you decent money requires a lot of time and money investment in a vertical niche, not yet-another-project-management-tool you can put together in a week.
Then you have to rely on getting the job by other means than sending your CV. In other words networking.
Personally I don't apply to public job listings any more, even when I match all requirements. They are a waste of everyone's time. But networking has its limits.
Depends on your circle. Most of my peers have families and mortgages, and don't have inherited wealth or sufficient savings. They are fiscally responsible but bootstrapping a company requires more resources than just being sensible with your money.
That's funny, as I apply to Django jobs with plenty of experience and just get ghosted, to the point I'm moving away from Django as it feels more and more like a dead end (though what in tech other than buzzword-du-jour is not a dead end at this point?)
I would agree. Applying to every public job posting out there is a waste of time.
Either the postings are fake (there for legal reasons, or to make the company look like they are healthy and growing) or they will be spammed by so many applicants that even if your resume is a perfect match it will just get lost in the noise.
Same here. However I do not believe things will recover, at least in a reasonable time frame for my own career. My thinking is now if this current job ends I need to think about exiting the industry and doing something else.
I have zero faith that it is going to pick up again. There is no evidence this is going to be the case. Your time would be better spent retraining for another industry, if that is practical for you.
This is definitely why I am thinking about leaving the industry, if and when current gig ends.
Even with a resume tailored exactly to requirements, crickets.
Some copium going around - "it's just interest rates", "thinks will pick up soon". Nope. This is what the end of the industry looks like, at least for a great many developers.