Let’s be honest—if you’re reading this, you’re probably that person on the dev team. You know the one. The unofficial firefighter, bug whisperer, and person who says, “Wait, did we even ask the client what they want?” two weeks into the sprint.
Welcome. Pull up a chair. Let’s trauma bond.
The Dev Team Lineup
Every dysfunctional dev team has the same cast:
- The Product Owner: Armed with grand visions, vague statements like “make it feel seamless,” and a mysterious aversion to writing actual requirements.
- The Web Dev Manager: They’re mostly here to remind you about deadlines and use the word “agile” incorrectly in every meeting.
- The “Other” Developers: A fascinating species. They contribute… vibes. Their Git commits are rare, their messages cryptic (“fixing stuff lol”), and their tickets always seem to be in In Progress for 11 business days.
- QA: The realest ones in the room, only noticed when something goes wrong and not a moment sooner.
- You: The lone wolf. The chosen one. The one with 36 open tabs, a Postman collection that could summon demons, and a sixth sense for when something will blow up 30 seconds after deployment.
Every Project Starts the Same Way
The team gathers around the virtual campfire (Google Meet) and the PO begins:
“We’re building a user dashboard, it should be super simple.”
Ah yes. Super simple. The two most dangerous words in product development. Usually followed by a Figma design that has hover states for hover states, 12 nested modals, and micro-interactions powered by unicorn blood.
The scope is unclear, the deadline is last week, and nobody’s entirely sure who approved the feature—but it’s happening.
You Start Seeing Red Flags, but Everyone Else Sees Rainbows
You: “Do we have a backend endpoint for this?”
Manager: “Let’s not get stuck on the details.”
You: “What’s the user supposed to do after logging in?”
PO: “It should just be intuitive.”
You: “Should we maybe talk to the designer or QA before we implement—”
Everyone: “Let’s stay agile.”
Agile. The universal excuse for winging it.
Launch Day: Powered by Panic
Somehow, someway, the project limps to the finish line. Not because of collaboration. Not because of planning. But because you and maybe one overworked QA took matters into your own hands and brute-forced this thing into existence.
Other devs are celebrating in the Slack channel like they just ran a marathon, and you’re over here trying to fix the fact that the login screen routes users to a 404 page called “whoopsie.html.”
You: “Why didn’t anyone test this?”
Manager: “That’s what QA is for.”
QA: “I asked everyone for test cases.”
PO: “I assumed it worked.”
You: [mentally vacationing in a cabin with no WiFi]
The Retrospective (aka Group Amnesia)
Here’s how it goes:
- PO: “Let’s celebrate the wins!”
- Manager: “I think we learned a lot.”
- You: “Can we talk about how we didn’t define scope, missed 3 dependencies, and I worked 14-hour days?”
- Dev #2: “Yeah but like… the color scheme was nice?”
- Manager: “Okay, let’s focus on positives.”
And just like that, the feedback evaporates into the void—never to be seen again. Until next sprint. When it all happens again.
Final Thoughts from the Frontlines
If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone. There are thousands of us. Quietly holding up entire codebases while everyone else is busy arguing over whether the button should be cornflower blue or seafoam green.
You’re doing amazing. You’re keeping the lights on. You are, unfortunately, the adult in the room.
Now go pour yourself a coffee, take a deep breath, and prepare for the next sprint.
Because no one else is going to read the ticket description.