I am the 10th employee and 3rd fulltime software developer at a startup which has so far seen some success. We have regular revenue from around 10 customers (a few of whom are fortune whatever-hundred), we have just gotten a small grant from the state we are located in and we are in talks with multiple VC funds, and have been attempting to push back our initial rounds because we believe our valuation is steadily increasing. The other two devs have been here since the beginning, and I just joined in July. I have about 3 years of professional experience, and in my opinion, our codebase is garbage from top to bottom. Adding or fixing any feature is a monumental task requiring collaboration between all three of us, and there are sections I don't bother touching without asking questions first. Furthermore, any request to refactor is mostly rebuffed by the fact that it doesn't add immediate value to the users we are beholden to for our immediate survival. How common is this? Should I jump ship, or will any other startup be just as bad? Do successful startups have good code, or is it all just about the final result for users?
Tl;Dr Do most startups which get funded/bought manage to produce good code, despite the pressure to produce features?
Tl;Dr Do most startups which get funded/bought manage to produce good code, despite the pressure to produce features?