Jesus i worked at exactly this kind of project once. The only other dev was also very hostile and protective of this position. He did not want me there in the slightest. Took about 6 months before we cancelled the contract since this dude was just actively harrassing me in Teams DMs on the daily and he just ignored all my concerns regarding maintainability since "he could understand the code" and i was probably just "not experienced enough".

Don't downplay what this does to your mental health. 5 years of workplaces like this and I'm now starting to see a therapist due to exhaustion disorder symptoms in my goddamn 20s. Take care our there!

[–] tiramichu@sh.itjust.works 11 points 1 day ago

So infuriating when you have some dickhead making themselves unfireable by intentionally convoluting the codebase and chasing out any other hire. And even worse when management bought into it and think the guy's an actual irreplaceable genius.

Probably even believes it himself. I hate narcissists.