I was hired to manage the code, not write it. I left as their CTO.

The first thing I was hired to do wasn't development.

"Just check whether our code is healthy." Read the code, point out what needed fixing, file the bugs, track them. Code management, basically. Writing the software was never the engagement.

BNZ ran an EdTech service (Hiqsum) connecting teachers and students in real time. The system had been built by an outside vendor over three years. I came in to manage that codebase.

Then I started reading it — and the problem wasn't a few bugs.

It wasn't bugs. It was the structure.