3 Programmers Got Fired (Including Me) Due to a Single App Crash
By: The Woman
Tags: Careers, Programming, Software Development, Technology, Startup

3 Programmers Got Fired (Including Me) Due to a Single App Crash

Photo by Lucian Alexe on Unsplash

I am now doing my third job. In my previous two jobs, one time I got fired and another time I resigned.

But getting fired was a horrible experience for me. I cried the whole day. I never told anyone about that — my friends, my new colleagues. I felt so ashamed and humiliated that I made up some lie for all about why I left the last job.

I couldn’t even tell my parents because they would get very upset. I only shared it with my boyfriend. He was so supportive and helped me to get a new and better job.

Let’s get into the story.

Problems of a low-funded startup

I worked in a startup aged only one year. There were a total of four partners. They only had one angel investor and were looking for more investors. They mainly made enterprise solutions.

You know startups have many problems. One of the main problems is the funding problem. In the beginning, a startup has to do a lot of work but doesn’t have enough resources. It pays less but expects a lot of output from the developers.

I joined there in February 2019. After three months, I got promoted from intern to junior developer. In the internship period, I got only $100/month. I had no regrets about that because I needed job experience.

There was a total of five programmers. All of us had to do a lot of work. We had to do overtime at least four out of six days a week. But the company didn’t pay us for the overtime. They never even said thanks. They acted like we were supposed to work overtime.

This is a red flag for developers. I would suggest to all the developers that if you find that your company always pushes you to work overtime without extra benefits, make a plan to change your job.

Because the scenario probably won’t change.

Arrogant CTO gave us more tasks than we could do

The CTO gave us all the tasks for a whole week. He didn’t care how fast or how slowly we did them. But he always gave us tons of work that would be very hard for even senior programmers to finish in a week.

We had no senior programmers. All of us were junior programmers. There was no tester, no designer. We had to work a minimum of nine or ten hours a day, 54–60 hours/week. If you didn’t work, you would lose your job.

If anyone couldn’t do all the tasks within time, he would humiliate them in front of all the other developers. He was one of the partners, so we couldn’t complain about him to a higher authority.

If anyone came to the office five minutes late, he cut their pay to a half day’s salary. But no one got extra money when they had to work for one or two hours extra.

I missed two interviews because I couldn’t manage time to attend them and I was not in a position to take the risk of losing this job.

App crashed

Then one day the CEO took on a new project that needed to be done within one and a half months: a mobile app and a web platform for building a customized delivery platform.

The initial target was to build a prototype to show a potential investor in order to raise money. The CTO told us that it’s very hard to get an appointment with that investor, so we had to build it within one and a half months.

One and a half months would be a very tight schedule for any team. We were very depressed when we heard we must have it made within that short time. We knew we all would have to do a lot of overtime.

They chose three developers for this project, including me. One was a backend developer, one was a Flutter mobile developer, and the other one was a frontend web developer (me).

But we still did it within time. Of course, there were bugs. We told this to both the CTO and the CEO. They seemed bothered but didn’t say anything at first.

The app crashed on mobile when it was being demonstrated in front of investors. It crashed because of a text field. The requirement of that text field was for numbers, but the CEO gave numbers and characters.

For fast development, we used Firebase’s Cloud Firestore to keep the data. When the user pushed string data instead of number data in Firestore from the mobile frontend side, the app crashed.

The investment was rejected, and we were the scapegoats

Investors rejected the investment. In my judgment, of course, the first fault was the CTO’s. He should never have taken this project on in this very short timeline.

The second fault was the CEO’s. He didn’t even try the app once before presenting it to the investors. He should have taken proper preparation because every app has bugs. And if you develop a project within one and a half months without testing, it will have many.

Today’s young entrepreneurs might have many advantages but one major problem. That’s a lack of experience. If they had more, the working environment in a startup would be more productive.

However, after getting rejected by the investors, the CEO wanted a clear explanation from the CTO. As usual, he didn’t say that the timeline was the problem.

The CTO said we were the problem. So we were the scapegoats. ☹

Two months’ salary and we are gone

I was involved in front-end web development. I had no engagement in the mobile development side. Still, they fired me. They said the design was not good. I am not denying that. But I am not a designer, and they should have considered that.

According to the job agreement, the company had to notify us two months before firing us. As the CEO got too upset, he fired us immediately with two months salary.

I am thankful to that company because I had a two-month gap. In the meantime, I had applied to seven companies and found a job.

But I will never forget the shame. I know maybe I shouldn’t feel that way. But still, that memory haunts me down.

Last few words

No one is perfect. Employers, please try to understand that. I am not saying we were the best programmers, but you shouldn’t demand that much output with poor management, an inexperienced CTO, and low-paid junior developers.

Not all management is the same. I have faced and heard some great CEOs and CTOs. Somehow this was my worst job experience, and one of my worst life experiences.

And I will say to all the developers to please don’t do this kind of job where you have no respect, no value, and a lot of pressure. If I had stayed there six more months, I would have gotten two years behind in my career.