I agree with that. The only caveat I have is that if you are a junior, entry level, or even just an underpaid developer being asked to work on “mission critical” code, then that code is not “mission critical”. It is code that management is obligated to provide but gives no real fucks about.

Much like a bar mitzvah or quinceañera signals the beginning of the transition from childhood to adulthood, there is the junior to senior transition for developers. It often starts with the realization that the most recent in a long line of super critical bugs you are working on has been sitting around untouched for weeks and is only now “critical” because a customer has bitched about it not being fixed. The best part is when you follow the progress of the bug and see that your fix doesn’t get touched by anyone for months because there never was an actual customer bitching about it in the first place, it was just some sales person or VP flexing their power because they felt ignored. So the bug got squeezed it into the already over packed production cycle by making it “mission critical” and assigning it to someone too junior to realize that it’s bullshit work.