It’s a popular joke among software engineers that writing overcomplicated, unmaintainable code is a pathway to job security. After all, if you’re the only person who can work on a system, they can’t fire you. There’s a related take that “nobody gets promoted for simplicity”: in other words, engineers who deliver overcomplicated crap will be promoted, because their work looks more impressive to non-technical managers.
Surprised he got as far as he did. Every line of code that touches production should be reviewed.
If it’s shit, fail it until it ain’t. To allow that shows a distinct lack of technical leadership.
You’ve since shown far more and that should build trust. Never trust contractors without verification.
It was a long time ago when code reviews were not yet standard practice everywhere. He was also protected by one of the few customer’s employees in the team, who was almost universally hated, because they bonded over some controversial political views.
Yeah nowadays this code would never make it past a PR.